


The Spy Who Loved Isak Valtersen

by Jamz24



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Smut, Being LGBT is largely illegal in WW2, Evak - Freeform, Evak Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff when needed!, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Horny While In Danger, How to make a homemade bomb out of household cleaning products, Implied Torture, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major character death - Freeform, Mentions of genocide, Mentions of human desecration, Mock execution references, Mutual Pining, Nazi occupation of Norway, No Grindr either, Non-graphic Holocaust references, Not much porn available you see, On the Run, Possible Anti-Semitic Language, Possible Homophobic Language, Possible Racist Language, Rape/Non-con Elements, Refugees, Sexual Teasing, Sexual flirting, Slightly Awkward Virgin Sex, Some Nazi terminology, Spy Even, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Pact, Terrorist references, Thriller, Tracker dogs hunting humans, WW2, WW2 Refugees, What are they going to dooooo?!?!?!, freedom fighter Isak, possible triggers, rebel Jonas, torture references, ×I'm definitely on the MI5 "persons of interest" list for my "interesting" Google searches lmao ×
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 94,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jamz24/pseuds/Jamz24
Summary: Spy Fic in which Even Bech Naesheim is an undercover agent in Nazi-occupied Norway, and resistance fighter Isak Valtersen is the man who he has been commanded to capture. Even must infiltrate the Norwegian Resistance, but who is he ACTUALLY working for?





	1. Going Undercover

**Author's Note:**

> Hitler invaded Norway in April 1940 and the Nazi occupation was complete by June. The King of Norway fled to London, where he acted as a government in exile in collaboration with the British and the Allied Forces. 
> 
> The Nazi-run Statspolitiet, or State Police (STAPO) was established in 1941 to tackle the Norwegian Resistance Movement and other espionage, sabotage, and armed resistance against the German occupying forces. STAPO also assisted in the deportation of the Jews in Norway.
> 
> The Norwegian Resistance movement was divided into the Hjemmefronten ("Home Front") which consisted of sabotage, raids, undercover operations and intelligence gathering against the Nazis, and the Utefront, ("Outer Front") which included Norway's ships, navy, air squadrons controlled by the British Navy and Royal Air Force who took on Nazi powers in armed combat.

_**Norway, 1941** _

It was a bright July morning as the black German-made Mercedes purred through the shattered streets of Oslo. Swathed in grey scarf and greatcoat on the back seat, STAPO Kommandor Even Bech Naesheim watched the grim cityscape of bombed-out buildings and rubble-strewn roads pass by his window with an expressionless face, puffing on his _ersatz_ cigarette with distaste. Tobacco had all but run out in Norway since the Nazi occupation, and the local hash of acorns, tea leaves and cheap paper was not, in his opinion, to be recommended.

People with starved and pinched faces scattered from the path of the Mercedes as they rummaged in heaps of trash for something – anything – to eat. After the invasion, the Norwegian economy had collapsed, and what little food there was came largely from the black market, or hunting and fishing. Even the parks had been dug up to plant crops, and where once there had been beds of daffodils and crocuses, small sprouts of carrots and cabbages had started to flourish.

Even had not been in Oslo since it had fallen, and though he did not show it, the scale of the disaster shook him to the core. The small gilded coffee houses and shops that he remembered from his youth were boarded up or gutted by fire, and hardly a car was to be seen on the streets. Hitler had crushed Norway with an iron fist.

The Mercedes slowed, and drew up outside the newly-established STAPO police headquarters, where the Nazi flags flew outside and large red swastikas hung at every window. Even took a deep breath, stubbed out his disgusting cigarette and peered up at the large, imposing building of the secret police.

“Kommandor Willhelm will see you inside,” said the driver, opening the door and saluting. “Heil Hitler.”

“Heil Hitler,” returned Even calmly, and strode up the steps.

 

***

 

Police Kommandor Willhelm Magnusson turned away from the map he was studying and held out a hand in greeting. “Even! You haven’t changed one bit! It feels like it’s been years!”

“It’s been five years and four months exactly,” returned Even casually, raising an eyebrow and clasping the proffered hand. “And you’ve certainly changed.”

Willhelm’s dark hair was clipped, pomaded and brushed to the side, his characteristic long forelock now cut back from his square forehead. His lips twitched slightly in his version of a smile beneath his small toothbrush moustache, very obviously grown in fond imitation of the Fuhrer.

“Yes, I’ve done pretty well for myself since UiO. Cigarette?”

Even was about to refuse, when he saw that Willhelm was offering him a Lucky Strike from a silver cigarette case. He stared in surprise. “You have American cigarettes here?”

Willhelm snorted. “Of course. Oslo's STAPO have been able to escape the worst of the rationing so at least we get decent cigarettes and brandy. I’m surprised that you lot up in Tromso are still smoking that awful pigweed.”

Even bent his head and accepted the light that Willhelm gave him, his mind churning over the possible reasons for the meeting. He hadn’t been particularly delighted to be dragged all the way down to Oslo from Tromso, but they had sent a private charter plane and express orders to attend without delay, so he assumed that it was something important that could not be talked about on the secret police telephone network.

“Right, well I’ll get straight down to business.” Willhelm motioned Even to sit down in a large chair opposite his oak desk which was strewn with pieces of paper. “The _Hjemmefronten_  – that damned group of Norwegian rebels – have been causing trouble on our supply lines again. They’ve blown up most of our railway lines at least twice a week and they’ve set off other bombs in arms and chemical factories, causing us millions in damage and severely hindering the war effort.”

“Rats,” said Even automatically, sucking in the smoke from the Lucky Strike. “Have they always been so bold around here?”

“Well, they started off pretty amateur - putting home-made molotovs underneath cars and so forth -but word is that there’s a new agent who’s recently joined them, some chemistry graduate from University of Oslo who’s a whizz at concocting high-level explosives using low-grade materials. Just as well the Luftwaffe bombed UiO to pieces this year, hey?”

Willhelm laughed his psychopath’s laugh, and Even’s lips twitched obediently. Willhelm stopped abruptly. “Oh sorry, I know you had a good time at uni. But you have to admit, it was riddled with Jews, fags and communists. Once the war is over, we’ll be raising a Reich Academy there, for pure-bloods, and a pure world.”

Even didn’t blink. “Yeah, Jews, fags and commies. That’s what I remember from UiO. But what’s all this got to do with me?”

“Their new agent is called Valtersen. Isak Valtersen. We call him the Dark Angel. Chemistry graduate, would have been the class of 1940, only son of a mentally ill mother and a liberal doctor father. Won practically all the prizes every year in some new field called supermolecular chemistry, whatever that is. Word is that he was tipped for great things in the world of science, but the war got in the way.”

Willhelm casually tossed a photograph over to Even. “That’s him at his university graduation, we don’t have a more recent picture for him, but he can’t have changed much.”

Even’s stomach flipped suddenly as he looked at the picture. A serious young man in university gown stared up at him, chin upraised, lips slightly parted as if he had been surprised in the act of talking. He fair hair bobbed in longish unruly curls underneath his graduate cap and a slight smile played at the corner of his mouth as if he shared a private joke with the photographer. Valtersen wasn’t just brainy, he was _beautiful_ , thought Even, entranced, he could have been some kind of film star with his sharp jawline, large eyes and long lashes. He had a sudden urge to reach and trace the line of the boy’s cheekbones with his finger, but the next moment he felt Willhelm’s eyes on him and pulled his hand back.

“Rumour has it in true UiO tradition that Valtersen’s both a fag and a commie – at least his best mate Jonas Noah Vasquez is a commie, though not a fag.” Willhelm pushed over another photo, this time of a supercilious young man with bushy eyebrows, a bandana bearing the Russian hammer and sickle casually knotted around his neck. “Vasquez thinks he’s the new Karl Marx. Spanish ancestry, studied political science at university, started demonstrations when war broke out, and once the invasion started he became one of the key figures of the Home Front resistance. He's got quite a following with the public - they call him the Ghost of Oslo - and offer him help and hideouts when he needs. It’s because of the Ghost that Valtersen joined the rebels.”

 “So, find Vasquez, and we stop the bombing?” queried Even.

“Or more precisely, find his Dark Angel, and you’ll find the Ghost too. That will cut the entire head off the resistance movement.”

"And how do you propose I do that?" asked Even lightly.

"Infiltrate the _Hjemmefronten_." Willhelm poured himself a tumbler of brandy and turned to Even. “Ice?”

“Er, no,” said Even automatically. Willhelm raised his eyebrows approvingly. “Straight? That’s my man.”

Even tried not to keep looking at the picture of Valtersen on the desk. “One question though? Why me? You must have any amount of STAPO agents who could do this for you.”

Willhelm downed his brandy in one gulp. “One, we trust you. Myself and Christoffer have known you since university, and there’s more spies in our ranks nowadays than you can shake a stick at, which is why we’re having this meeting face to face. Secondly, you haven’t been in Oslo for years so nobody will recognise you. Vasquez is pretty thorough, he’s taped out every agent we have so all our leads have led nowhere. Thirdly,” and Willhelm coughed to hide his embarrassment, “you’re pretty easy on the eye which probably won’t hurt, at least where Valtersen is concerned.”

Even sipped at his drink to hide his sudden breathlessness. “So where am I to start?”

“We’ve been looking at Valtersen’s old friends – he was pretty tight with a small crew, and we’re keeping tabs on all of them. There’s Noora Saetre – she’s a jazz singer at the Luftwaffe Social Club down at the plaza, pretty girl, real looker, if that’s your type of thing. Then there’s Magnus Fossbakken, used to run a godawful music hall with the worst comedy in town, but now he’s one of the main men in Oslo’s black market. We tend to leave him alone otherwise our meat and wine would dry up pretty quickly!”

Willhelm refilled Even’s glass. “There’s also Vilde Lien Hellerud, she’s a hostess and burlesque dancer at the Nippen club who runs a brothel on the side, and then finally, there’s Vasquez’s girl, Eva Mohn. Graduated in business studies, same year as Valtersen.”

“You know Vasquez’s girl?” asked Even curiously. “Why don’t you just bring her in and use her as leverage to get Vasquez?”

“Vasquez is no fool,” said Willhelm curtly. “We know they see each other, but we’ve never caught him. We don't call him the Ghost for nothing – he can literally fade into thin air. The girl doesn’t know where he is, the contact is all from his side. But still, she won’t be around much longer so we don’t need to follow that lead particularly.”

“Why not?” asked Even curiously.

“Oh, she’s Jewish,” said Willhelm casually. “She's registered in the ghetto with the others which means she can't leave. And now the occupation’s under control, we’ve got to get our house in order, right? And that means – getting rid of the rats.”


	2. We Resist!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jonas is a bit of a star, and Julian Dahl is apparently a Nazi sympathiser. Sorry, Julian
> 
> Isak's POV so we find out a bit more about the Ghost of Oslo and his Dark Angel behind the scenes, in their underground hideout ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vidkun Quisling was the leader of the Norwegian Nazi party Nasjonal Samling in 1933. 
> 
> As soon as Hitler invaded, Quisling burst into the NRK studios in Oslo and declared himself the leader of the collaboration government, though it took until 1942 for Quisling to become "minister president" of the "national government". 
> 
> The term "quisling" is still used to refer to those who collaborate with an enemy or occupying force, or used as another word for traitor. For example, in 2016 an American newspaper asked, "Is Donald Trump A Russian Quisling?"
> 
> Franco was a fascist dictator in Spain, who fought the Spanish communists in a war between 1936 and 1939.

Isak yawned deeply, sitting hunched over his workbench twisting the last of three hundred wire fuses ready for priming in the morning. His fingers were cramped and sore, and his neck hurt from peering at his work in the flickering candlelight, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t switch off, couldn’t abandon his work for a second, no matter how tired he was.

Gentle snores echoed around the small, cramped, underground cellar where he worked. Isak finally laid the last fuse down and looked over to where Jonas was lying, passed out cold on the battered sofa that served them for a bed. Jonas had come back earlier after a secret visit to Eva, smelling of her scent and sex and a thousand other things that made Isak’s stomach hurt and his eyes prick with suppressed tears. Jonas had used the usual rooftop passage to Eva’s house, he’d told Isak, but on the way back there were eyes on the streets, far more than usual, and so he’d spent hours clinging to a chimney, praying that they would pass on before the dawn came. He’d finally made it back, black with soot and frozen to the bone, but he was safe, he was safe at least, thought Isak with dull relief.

For this day, Jonas was safe, and that was all Isak could ask for.

“Jonas,” he whispered, but Jonas snored on, out cold after the night’s events. Stretched out like this he looked like a child, his haughty, clever face now relaxed in sleep and strangely innocent.

Isak bent closer and looked at him, gazed at the shadows underneath his young friend’s eyes, his thick eyebrows and the thin, purple mark on his neck where he’d been slashed at during a university march.

As his eyes fell on the old, dull scar, Isak felt as if that march had happened only yesterday. He remembered it well, so well that sometimes he wished he could forget.

**_September, 1939_ **

Hitler had just invaded Poland, and Jonas’s socialist group at University of Oslo had put on a solidarity march protesting against Hitler’s invasion and the new fascist groups rising across Europe – Benito Mussolini and the Italian brownshirts, the British blackshirts and their leader Oswald Moseley, and in particular, Norway’s own fascist _Nasjonal Samling_ party, headed by Vidkun Quisling.

Isak hadn’t planned to attend the march – he’d actually forgotten it had been organised and he’d been trying to get through the crowd to the lab to carry on his observations of static atoms in the university lab – but the press of the crowd was too thick and he’d found himself being pushed up against the university steps in front of Jonas and the other rally speakers with no way out.

“We protest the Nazi invasion of Poland!” cried Jonas, standing on the steps of UiO, fist held aloft. “We protest those fascists who are trying to take over Europe! We must not let them win!”

Isak gazed up at him, struck. Jonas looked so beautiful, red shirt unbuttoned to the neck, his face shining in the midday sun and alight with conviction. He was in his element here, looking like a true revolutionary, a child of dreams, standing up on the steps of UiO addressing a huge crowd of students and young people gathered to hear him speak. He didn’t seem fazed at all at the huge sea of faces upturned to him. Isak was suddenly in awe of his friend in a way he never had been before.

“Fascism will kill us all!” shouted Jonas. “You think that the fascist Quisling has the answers? No! He’s using your fear to manipulate you!”

“You think your communist boy Stalin in Russia is any better?” shouted a heckler. “How many people has _he_ shot or sent to prison, eh?”

“Go back to Spain and fight Franco, Vasquez!” shouted another. “We don’t need your sort here!”

Isak flinched and looked at Jonas. The Vasquez family had been refugees from the Spanish civil war some years earlier, and Jonas still noticeably carried the Spanish accent in his speech, but instead of being angered, Jonas looked strangely exhilarated by the challenge. 

“That’s what we ALL should be doing!” Jonas threw back. “Whatever our country, we cannot stand by while fascists are taking over Europe! The only thing necessary for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing!”

“Then what can we do?” called a girl standing near Isak. She had blonde hair that whipped around her in the sun, and her lipstick looked like a red wound across her face. “How can we stop them?”

“We resist!” cried Jonas passionately. “We march against them! We do not believe their lies! We write books and we educate our children and we make friends with people of different countries, and we do not allow this seed of hatred to take root!”

“Go back to Spain, you immigrant!” shouted the heckler, and to Isak’s dismay, a few people in the crowd took up the chant. “Immigrant! Immigrant! Go back to Spain!”

A chubby boy standing near them turned and looked at the heckler. “Oh fuck off, Julian, you little creep! No one wants to hear your crap!”

“Fuck you Magnus,” shouted the heckler, and the next moment a scuffle broke out between them, with both sides screaming at each other.

“Fascists only want to divide us!” shouted Jonas above the rising tumult. “The Jews are not your enemy! Homosexuals are not your enemy! Gypsies and socialists are not your enemy! Your only enemy is fear itself!”

But the first stone was already being thrown, and Jonas dodged with inches to spare as it whizzed past his head and shattered against the stone wall. Isak suddenly found the use of his limbs and ran up the stairs to Jonas, pulling him off the steps with all the strength he had. “This way, this way!”

Around them the march erupted into rioting with both sides attacking each other. Isak was dimly aware of the blonde-haired girl and the chubby boy extricating themselves from the press of demonstrators and running alongside them. “No!” cried Jonas, struggling to get back to the steps. “This is not the way! I have to talk to them!”

“You’re gonna get killed!” gasped Isak, pulling at his arm. “They don’t want to listen to reason. They just want blood.”

“He’s right,” shouted the tubby boy, his cheeks red from tussling with the heckler. “A load of Quisling supporters infiltrated the rally to cause trouble. We need to get out, plan our next steps.”

“You’re worth more alive than dead,” said the blonde-haired girl. “We’ll plan another march another day.”

Isak looked at her warily. She smiled cheerily and held out her hand. “I’m Noora Saertre, music graduate, and this is my friend Magnus Fossbakken, pianist extraordinaire.”

“Hi,” said Isak, warily shaking hands. “I’m Isak, and this is –“

“Oh we all know Jonas,” said Magnus, gazing at Jonas worshipfully. “Everyone knows Jonas.”

Jonas finally relented and allowed them to lead him off down a small alley between the university buildings. He looked downcast and sad, and Isak had an impulse to throw his arms around his friend and chase his sadness away. “I failed,” he said sadly. “We’ll never win at this rate.”

“Yeah, well better luck next time. This rally is a writeoff,” muttered Magnus, stumbling in front of them. “Ohhhh … shit.”

Magnus and Noora had stopped dead, and Isak suddenly realised why. Blocking the alleyway was a group of Quisling supporters, one of them holding a knife. Isak’s body pulsed with fear. They were looking at Jonas with hatred.

“Fucking refugee,” spat the Quisling holding the knife. “Coming over here, taking our houses and our jobs!”

Jonas returned his stare evenly and Isak could feel the anger radiating off him, but for all that, his friend remained calm. Isak could see him evaluating the situation, assessing their chances of success on whether to fight or retreat.

“You don’t get to hate him because he’s a refugee,” shouted Isak, suddenly finding his voice. “You should hate the people that made him a refugee!”

"Sewer rats!" shouted the Quislings. "Fags, commies, Jews and gypsies! Fucking scum of the earth!"

Isak couldn't help himself. "You're the fucking scum, you cunts!" he screamed, his face twisted with hatred.

Instantly the Quisling lunged forward, swung at Jonas. Jonas brought his hand up to block, but the knife slipped and gashed at his neck. A bright red fountain of blood erupted from Jonas’s neck and Isak gasped in horror. It was all a bit of a blur after that, but he dimly remembered Magnus barrelling into the Quislings, fists flying, knocking the knifeman to the ground with a single punch, while Noora was pressing her cardigan to the open wound in Jonas’s neck to try to staunch the flow of blood, and Isak remembered them all running, pulling Jonas with him, Jonas’s blood gushing out over his neck, over his red shirt, over Isak’s hands clasped around him -

_Oh God, Jonas, don’t die, please don’t die …_

Isak blinked back to reality in the dim cellar, and the echoes of the shouting, the _hatred_ – faded around him as he looked at his friend sleeping peacefully below him, safe for one more day. Jonas’s curls sprang lightly above his forehead, and Isak couldn’t stop himself reaching out a hand and gently running his fingers through his hair.

Jonas moaned and shifted slightly in his sleep, and Isak’s stomach knotted again at the sound. If only Jonas … and he bit that thought off before it could finish. Jonas was Jonas, and he loved Eva, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Still, his fingers went lower to softly touch the dark scar that still laced Jonas’s neck, the scar that was the reason he still wore a neckerchief in all weathers.

Jonas opened one eye and saw Isak crouching above him. Out of reflex his body tensed and his fist raised automatically, before he recognised his friend and pulled his fist back.

“Fuck, Isak, what are you doing? Why aren’t you asleep?”

“I can’t sleep,” said Isak miserably, folding his arms around his stomach. “I’m too awake.”

Jonas groaned. “You have to. You’re our best fucking asset, mate, without you we can’t do half the things we do, but you need to get enough sleep or you can’t function. We can’t have you mixing the wrong fucking chemicals and blowing us all up because of sleep deprivation.”

“It’s OK for you,” said Isak bitterly, “you can sleep anywhere, in a fucking tree if you needed.”

“Or against a fucking chimney,” said Jonas with a wicked smile. Isak didn’t. Jonas relented.

“Okay then. Want to come in here with me?”

Isak demurred for a moment – he didn’t want to seem too eager after all – but Jonas sleepily shifted over to make room for him, and he found himself sinking into the warm space, full of Jonas’s smell, no more Eva now, just all that _Jonas-ness_ – and little by little his arms were finding themselves around Jonas’s waist under pretext of stretching out, and Jonas’s arm was underneath Isak's head like a pillow and the other hand sleepily drowsing against Isak’s stomach. Isak closed his eyes and felt the sensation wash over him like a warm flood.

 _It’s not wrong_ , he told himself firmly, _I’m not doing anything wrong._

Jonas fell asleep again very quickly, but Isak remained awake, pressed against his neck, breathing in his warm chest smell, the dusky scent of Jonas’s skin and feeling the slight prickle of his curls against Isak’s cheek.

Isak lived for the few occasions that he and Jonas ended up like this. The first time had been after that first disastrous rally in 1939, once Jonas had been bandaged up at hospital, and ended up coming home with Isak after he, Noora and Magnus had exchanged addresses and agreed to meet up to plan the next demo as soon as Jonas had healed.

Despite his earlier bravado, Jonas had been more than a little shaken up from the knife attack, and Isak had enjoyed taking care of him, sponging his face and body clean of blood spatter, getting him changed into a set of his own clean clothes, letting him share his own bed. That night he had been pressed against Jonas just as he was now, and he remembered that first feeling: that closeness, that warm smell of masculinity that enveloped him and the feeling of happiness in the pit of his belly. He felt Jonas’s breath on his cheek, and his own breath slowed down in sympathy. When Jonas moaned in his dreams, snuggled closer and threw an arm around him. Isak had almost melted.

That night was the first time he’d been held by a man, really held, properly held, and it still counted as Isak’s top romantic memory, even if the man he was with was actually heterosexual and moreover, actually asleep. He had felt himself starting to get hard against Jonas’s thigh, and he had flushed with embarrassment, before realising that Jonas was so deeply asleep not even a large erection growing between them could wake him. He told himself sternly that he couldn’t do anything about his painfully stiff hard-on, and knew that he wouldn’t take advantage of Jonas, whether awake or asleep, or betray his trust in any way. But the sensation of being in another man’s arms felt so good, and so safe, and so loving that Isak had wished he could stay there forever. Despite knowing that Jonas didn’t feel the same way towards him anyway.

Jonas loved Eva, for God’s sake.

Over the years, from time to time after nights out, rallies or clashes with Quisling supporters, they’d end up cuddling to fall asleep, and later Isak would either surreptitiously extricate himself to masturbate furiously in the bathroom, or, if there was no opportunity to do so, he would often drift off after a couple of hours being held by Jonas. Sometimes he would slip into some heady sex-dreams where he was chasing a naked, beautiful boy that sometimes looked like Jonas and other times nothing like him at all, but as soon as he caught him in his arms the boy would fade and disappear. After those dreams Isak would often end up coming in his underwear whilst asleep and wake up sticky and depressed, but for those brief hours of bliss in Jonas’s arms, it was worth it.

He was in love with Jonas, and Jonas was in love with Eva, and that was just the way it was.

And today Jonas was safe, he was safe for one more day, and that’s all Isak could ask for.

He fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ... JONAS! YAS! My Spanish immigrant refugee boy can give a Henry V speech along with the best of them! 
> 
> Aw ... Isak. Unrequited love's a bitch. I should know. But hang on honey, you're about to meet a very impressive someone in the not too distant future ...
> 
> Seriously, as I was writing this, I was struck by so many parallels of today's Europe - the rise of populist, right wing parties, the demonisation of certain groups of society including refugees, immigrants, those of other religions ... let's hope that with the Internet and the forces of social mobility we can overcome those who seek to divide us, as Jonas says!
> 
> If anyone wants me to put in a glossary of terms, or is getting a bit lost in the political scene, do let me know!


	3. Operation Penetrator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Christoffer Schistad makes a sudden appearance and Even realises the situation he's gotten himself into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Across Europe in the early part of the 20th century, gay relationships between either men or women were illegal, usually carrying a prison term, hard labour or sometimes execution. 
> 
> When Hitler established his network of concentration camps, LGBT people were immediately sent there in all Nazi-occupied countries. 
> 
> An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of those sentenced were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps, and the death rate has been calculated as high as 60%. LGBT people in the camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors.

Even dragged himself out of bed in the plush Magnusson suite in the top floor of the old Hotel Oslo and blinked in bewilderment for a moment, trying to remember exactly how he’d come to this.

Willhelm had organised for Even to stay in his family’s private suite in Hotel Oslo as the Nazis had commandeered most of the hotels in the area for billeting their troops. Inside the suite, you could be forgiven for thinking that the war had never come to Norway. The walls were lined with silk striped wallpaper, and the furniture was solid, polished oak. Crisp linen lay on the bed, and the embroidered rugs on the floor were soft and thick. On the dresser stood silver-topped cologne bottles and silver-backed hairbrushes, lavender-laundered handkerchiefs and freshly-whetted razors with handles of mother-of-pearl. After more than a year of wartime rationing, Even felt more than a little dazed at being surrounded by such riches. Most of the precious metals in Oslo had already been commandeered by the Nazis and melted down to replenish their bullion stocks.

Paintings of the dead-eyed, pale-skinned Magnussons of previous generations stared down arrogantly from the walls, each of them in their dark eyes and cruel faces bearing an unnerving resemblance to Willhelm. Even resisted an impulse to turn them all to the wall.

He crossed the room to the window and threw open the shutters. Hotel Oslo commanded a good view of the central part of the city, but it was a grim sight compared to the opulence of the room where he stood. On the outskirts of the city, where resistance had been heaviest during the invasion, the skyline was still blackened in jagged disrepair after more than a year. Closer in, the central streets and port had been kept in better condition for the benefit of the occupying troops. From time to time _Krupp-Protze_ trucks filled with German soldiers hummed by, and sometimes a battalion of troops marched past in goose-step, the noise of their marching making the ground shake. From every window hung the large flags emblazoned with swastikas, and in the small dirty alleys, crept haggard, desperate people flitting like shadows through the battered streets, searching for any crumbs they could to keep body and soul together.

Even lit a cigarette – there was a silver case of Lucky Strike on a leather-inlaid writing desk – and sat on the window ledge, one leg swinging, his mind working overtime.

Somewhere out there, in the mixture of ruins and swastika flags, was Valtersen, the Dark Angel, part of the Ghost’s small underground army of saboteurs, bomb-makers, message-runners, photographers and spies. The fact that the Vasquez group had existed for almost a year under enemy rule was reason enough to assume that they were savvy operators who made no mistakes and left nothing to chance. A simple observe-and-capture mission was unlikely to succeed against a gang of this calibre.

He looked again at the picture of Valtersen in the file that Willhelm had left him. The boy looked at the camera through his long eyelashes, almost flirtatiously, as if testing the viewer with his intelligence. Even’s finger traced the outline of his lips almost unconsciously. _Why does he have to be so damn beautiful_ , he thought distractedly to himself. _Why does this have to be so much harder?_

Willhelm had hinted at another way for him to track down Valtersen, and it had also occurred to Even the moment he looked at the photograph. Part of him couldn’t help but feel a strange thrill at the idea of seducing Valtersen, but he knew that it was playing with fire. Willhelm obviously trusted him enough to give him this mission – or more than most of his spooks anyway - but Even was not fool enough to think he could go completely unobserved. He couldn’t expose Valtersen as homosexual without exposing himself – and Even knew that even if Valtersen was delivered to them as promised, he himself could expect no mercy on that score. Homosexuals were sent to the camps along with Jews, Slavs, gypsies and communists.

 _This is a suicide mission_ , he thought to himself. _You need to get out._

Even dressed quickly, in nondescript grey suit and tie, washed his face and gazed at himself in the mirror. Beneath his short, fair hair, his eyes looked bloodshot, tired, and full of worry. He couldn’t afford this kind of stress, he knew. Not enough sleep always led to trouble; unrealistic thoughts and dangerous impulses. He breathed deeply, trying to quiet his racing thoughts.

“I’ve got you,” he told himself quietly. “I’ve got you.”

His quick-thinking brain formed a plan of action. He would go to the hotel lobby, he decided, and telephone the SAPO staff back in Tromso. He had a few high-ranking SAPO friends there where he could call in a few favours. Arrange an urgent order to order him back home, for example, for another, rival, non-existent mission. Something that couldn’t wait – so Willhelm would just have to find someone else. And if he was already on the way back home when Willhelm was told the news, then all to the better. Willhelm would be pissed, obviously, but there wouldn’t be much he could do if a higher-up had already called Even back home.

He twisted the ornate doorknob and let himself quietly into the corridor.

“Hey, Naesheim!” Christoffer’s voice echoed cheerily behind him. “Slipping out on us already?”

Leutnant Christoffer Schistad, dapper in a crisp SAPO uniform with silver flashes on his collar, was sauntering down the corridor behind him, a broad smile across his face. Even turned to face him warily, pasting a pleasant smile on his own face in return.

“I couldn’t believe it when Willhelm told me you were the one he’d assigned to track down Valtersen!” said Christoffer, looking at him, eyes dancing. “I said, not our old pal Even! I haven’t seen him in years! Wondered if you were still as ugly as I remembered, and I wasn’t wrong!”

Even forced himself to laugh along with Chistoffer. He’d never been a friend of Christoffer’s at UiO, but Christoffer had always seemed to have a lot of time for him, laughing at his jokes, hanging around whenever Even was there, constantly asking him to tag along to dances or the movies. He was a good looking young man, with a cynical, though rather sly face, heavy-lidded eyes and long eyelashes. Even was glad to see that he hadn’t tried to reproduce the Fuhrer’s moustache.

“So where were you off to?” asked Christoffer curiously. “Trying to see the local sights?”

“I, uh, was looking for breakfast,” said Even. “I’m pretty hungry.”

“Forget that, we can’t have anyone seeing you. We’ll get some food brought up,” said Christoffer, throwing an arm around Even’s shoulders and leading him back into the room. “We’ve got a lot of work to get through. Let me introduce myself properly though, as your handler for Operation Penetrator.”

The hotel room door closed behind them. “Operation Penetrator?” asked Even, suppressing a hysterical urge to laugh.

“That’s what Willhelm’s named the infiltration mission of the _Hjemmefront,”_ grinned Christoffer, similarly amused. _“_ Yeah, I thought it was kinda shit too, but he’s the boss I guess. My codename is Hawknight, and you will report to me, and only to me. Are we clear?”

Even nodded. Christoffer smiled. “Your codename is Seabird. You will not mention the names of Vasquez, Valtersen or any of the _Hjemmefront_ out loud, either in person, written format or on a broadcast. Memorise the codenames on this sheet of paper, and then destroy it. Understand?”

“Of course,” said Even calmly, tucking the paper into his top pocket. “How often are we to meet?”

“Every day I will be sitting on the bench in the Park National at 9am,” said Christoffer. “I’ll be wearing civilian clothes and holding a crutch. I’ll have that day’s newspaper with me. If I’m reading the newspaper, it is safe to approach. If the newspaper is on the bench, the grass, or you can’t see one at all, it means that we abort the contact and set up for the second stage meeting.”

“What’s the second stage meeting?” asked Even.

“The secondary meet point is at 11am in Oslo Museum, in the Antiquities Department, third floor, door at the left. There’s a men’s toilet and a cleaning cupboard opposite. If the cleaning sign is hanging on the toilet door, it is safe to enter the toilet, and I will meet you there.”

“Understood,” said Even, his mind racing. “Is there an obligation to meet every day?”

“No, but there is no other way to make contact. The Ghost monitors most of our radio signals, so it’s not safe to broadcast any information, no matter how well coded. If you need to pass on any written material, such as a map, transcripts or addresses, you can either bring it with you in the newspaper to the park, or tuck it behind the third toilet from the left at the Museum. Understood?”

“Perfectly,” said Even, thinking hard. He realised now why Willhelm had chosen him for the mission: it was wildly complicated but his over-active brain could handle it, like spinning plates. He could hear the unspoken threat in Christoffer’s instructions spiralling through his mind.

 _He’ll follow me too_ , he thought to himself. _They won’t let me go completely unobserved._

“Now let’s have a look at you.” Christoffer pursed his lips, hands on hips, and signalled for Even to turn around in front of him. “Your clothes are okay, but I’d recommend slacks and a sweater rather than a suit, maybe an old jacket if you can get your hands on one that’s a bit patched.”

Even had seen an old clothes stall during his car drive. “That’s fine, I can pick one up no problem.”

“But your hair’s a bit of an issue,” Christoffer was suddenly standing very close in front of him, running a hand through Even’s short back-and-sides with a practiced gesture. “That Nazi cut is a real red flag, you’d better let your hair grow out a bit, let it flop university style, otherwise they’ll spot you a mile off.”

Even had been thinking the same. “I agree. I can’t look too preppy.”

 Christoffer raised a finger and ran softly it along Even’s jaw. “Also grow a tiny inch of beard if you can. Nothing fancy, no need to go full Bolshevik, but enough to signal that you’re a bit outside the system, understand? All these visual cues build trust. At the moment you just scream SAPO. And that won’t fit in with your cover story.”

“So what is my cover?” asked Even. “What’s my story?”

“Your name is Henrik, and you’re back in town for your grandmother’s funeral. You’re a country boy, never went to university, you joined up into the Norwegian Army when Hitler started invading but you were shot in the leg and invalided back home. You’ve just inherited your family’s farm, so you’ve got a line on getting eggs and fruit, so you’ll look up Magnus, tell him you’ve got supplies for the black market at the right price. Mags isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, so anyone offering him easy food won’t raise too much suspicion. Then you follow him and his food deliveries. Vasquez and Valtersen need to eat, don’t they, so follow the food trail.”

Even’s eyes narrowed. The idea of the Vasquez Group being so easy to track seemed unlikely, and hardly worth calling in an agent from Tromso, but Christoffer seemed sincere enough about the plan. “Thank you,” he answered finally, pocketing the address. “Anything else?”

Christoffer smiled at him. “Nothing else important.”

“Okay …” said Even, warily.

“I don’t have to go just yet,” Christoffer said softly. “If you’d like me to stay awhile.”

Even looked at him, surprised.

“I thought we could, you know, relax together for a while. Work some stress out.” Christoffer stepped closer, drawing a finger along Even’s shoulder and up his neck to the jawline. Even didn’t move, but he could feel the other’s quivering tension and sense the heat radiating from his skin. Christoffer’s fingers stroked gently up Even’s chin, circled questing around his ear, and down to the well of his neck.

“I’m not sure I understand,” croaked Even, playing for time, although he understood extremely well, even more so when Christoffer casually shrugged off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a smooth, well-muscled chest.

“You know I’ve always liked you,” breathed Christoffer. “We never had time to really get to know each other. I’ve felt quite lonely here with only that dickhead Willhelm for company.”

He held Even’s eyes with his own as he drew his finger in a line down Even’s chest, down over his stomach, hovering over the buckle of Even’s belt, lingering there while his fingers curled inside to skim his flesh. His other hand ghosted over Even’s fly, pushing between his legs to cup him softly. Even could feel the heat from his fingers as Christoffer squeezed gently, once, twice, three times. His breathing quickened and Christoffer’s pink tongue peeked suggestively through his lips. For a moment Even wondered what it would be like to just lean over and kiss – really kiss – a man, instead of imagining it. How it would feel to touch and be touched by a man instead of jacking off frantically in bed at night. For a moment it was all there, all there in front of him, if he only -

Even felt his head start to swim and his heart race. He cleared his throat to buy some time. “It’s forbidden,” he muttered brokenly. “Pink triangles go to the camps, remember? By edict of the Fuhrer?”

Christoffer laughed softly. “Forbidden, is it? Well what the Fuhrer doesn’t know won’t hurt him – or hurt us for that matter. There’s some guys pretty horny for cock in the Luftwaffe I can tell you. Even Ernst Röhm had a thing for beautiful young men in uniform from what I hear.”

Even’s eyes fell on the picture of Valtersen’s face, still lying upward on the desk. His stomach suddenly coiled in revulsion at Christoffer’s touch and he pushed the other’s hand away.

“I can’t,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

Christoffer took a step back and his eyes darkened bitterly. “That’s a shame,” he said. “I’m good at sucking cock. Men have told me they’ve never had better.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” said Even carefully. “But you need to be careful, Christoffer. If they catch you –”

“I’ll be careful,” said Christoffer, sounding almost petulant. “I’m discreet. I’ve fucked quite a few high-ups who have far more to lose than you.”

“Look, I don’t want to, okay, Christoffer? I just don’t want to!” said Even sharply, before he could help himself.

Christoffer’s face flushed as if he had been slapped, and he turned away quickly, but not before Even had seen the shimmer of tears under his eyelashes.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” he amended. “I just …”

“I thought you liked me,” muttered Christoffer. “I saw the way you looked at me when we went swimming naked that time, I thought-“

Even remembered the time well, and yes he had been looking at Christoffer in that way, and yes he had jerked off many times over that memory, but he correctly guessed that now was not the time to share that information.

“I just don’t want anyone to get caught,” he said lamely. “I just want us all to be safe.”

Christoffer nodded, still turned away, buttoning up his shirt with shaking hands. “Fine. Don’t worry about me. Worry about catching Valtersen instead.”

“Okay,” said Even again into the sudden silence. “Well, um, I guess I’ll see you around then.”

“Yeah,” Christoffer shrugged himself into his jacket and went to the door. “Park National, at 9am. Make sure your Henrik disguise is note-perfect. And I’d make sure you pick up a walking stick, seeing as you’re wounded and all.”

“Wounded?” asked Even, puzzled. “What kind of wounded?”

Christoffer grinned bitterly, and his smile looked dark and wolfish.

“This kind of wounded,” he said, drawing his pistol and shooting Even in the thigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh! P-Chris is one of my guilty pleasures so I thought it would be a shame if I couldn't get him in there somehow!!
> 
> Uh oh ... Even ... what's gonna happen now?
> 
> At least he's got some rock-solid cover story ...


	4. Stir Crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Isak goes stir-crazy and takes on a ludicrously dangerous mission, thanks to Magnus and Vilde

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The SS - full name the Schutzstaffel - designed, administered and controlled the Nazi concentration camp system. 
> 
> From 1939, the SS took on responsibility for deporting Jews, gypsies, dissidents, communists, homosexuals, people with disabilities and others they considered "undesirable" from conquered countries as part of their ethnic cleansing. 
> 
> From June 1941 the Final Solution - the wholesale murder of six million Jews and potentially five million non-Jews - was started, with millions of people murdered in special extermination camps set up in Poland. We now refer to this as the Holocaust. 
> 
> During all of 1941, Norwegian Jews were arrested, or at the very least registered and their property confiscated. By October 1942, wholescale deportations of Jewish men, women and children were actioned. Nearly half of Norwegians who died in the camps were Jewish, though two-thirds of the Jewish population escaped.

Isak was going stir crazy. He’d been holed up in the tiny bunker for over six weeks now, ever since their last safe house had been blown, the night that he and Jonas had narrowly escaped with their lives. Now he and his bomb-making equipment were cooped up in a small dug-out space underneath a disused cellar in a bombed-out house, reached only through a man-hole from above.

The problem with living underground was that you lost track of time. With no sunrise to wake you, and no evening to soothe you, it was very easy to end up living in an uneasy black dream, punctuated by brief trips to the toilet, working by candlelight, eating the tiny rations allocated to you, going back to sleep again. You didn’t feel the wind on your face, or the sun on your hair, or hear people – normal people – laughing and talking. Not that there had been much laughing outside in Norway since Hitler had invaded.

His eyes ached and his skin was unhealthily pale from lack of sun. The lack of exercise was also beginning to tell on him; he felt alternately twitchy and exhausted, unable to fall asleep although he was deadly tired. People weren’t meant to live their lives underground, he told himself furiously. He was a man, not a mole. He looked at the dark shadows underneath his eyes in the bit of cracked mirror that hung above the washbowl. _I’m going to die down here_ , he thought to himself darkly.

 “We have to keep you safe,” Jonas had said to him. “People know your face, you’ve been in every newspaper and the price on your head is one that people would sacrifice their own grandmother for. It won’t be for long. This war can’t go forever.”

It was all right for bloody _Jonas_. He came and went as he pleased, taking the most absurd risks. He’d been gone for the last forty six hours straight, leaving Isak alone with nothing but his thoughts for company. Isak brooded. Jonas might die tomorrow, but at least he’d done something interesting with his life. Not skulking underground like a fox at bay.

He glanced at the dusty workbench with its rows of fuses waiting for priming. Rows upon rows of death, waiting for him to start work for the day.

Isak had enjoyed being a chemist. At university he’d dreamed of using his skills to cure diseases, combat famines and stop crop failures. He hadn’t ever considered that instead he’d be spending his days creating and dealing out death. Explosives, corrosives, acids, poisons; toxic gases that could be created by the simple act of adding one chemical to another, Isak’s phenomenal knowledge of chemistry produced an incredible shopping list of death. Bombs that were taken by agents and installed underneath railway tracks, bridges, SS lunch canteens, shops that the Nazis frequented, air hangars and strapped underneath lorries. Toxins that could be added to food in a canteen, dripped into water sources, smeared on walking sticks and newspapers to poison the holder. Explosions designed and engineered by the notorious Dark Angel became real and horrific in the outside world; derailing trains, burning supplies, exploding armaments, destroying infrastructure; and in the process shattering limbs, skulls, brains, lives. His picture was on the back of every newspaper these days, the price on his head was more than enough for a Norwegian family to eat for a year.

Isak was well aware of his notoriety, and of Jonas's, and the whole of the Vaquez Group, but he took no pride in it. He took no pride in his death count either. Fighting back against Nazi invaders was one thing, he thought to himself to square his conscience, but everyone knew that innocents could be involved, no matter how targeted the bomb, no matter how finely calculated the area of destruction. Innocents could and would be killed in almost every sabotage operation, whether it were guiltless servants killed in an assassination attempt on their Nazi masters, or a child crossing the street at the wrong time outside a Nazi barracks.

He had truly become the Dark Angel, he thought to himself heavily. It wasn’t a life he would have chosen for himself. It was a life which had chosen him.

A heavy thudding at the trapdoor above startled him and he froze, heart cartwheeling into his mouth and chest squeezed tight. It was only when he heard Magnus’s voice muffled from the cellar above that he relaxed. Pulling open the bolts that secured the heavy shutter from below, he saw his plump friend grinning cheerily down from above.

“What on earth, Magnus!” he snapped angrily. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry!” Magnus swung himself down into the bunker with practiced ease. “I would have telephoned you via the Oslo Exchange but you never pick up these days.”

“Idiot,” Isak swiped at him affectionately. It was never easy to stay cross with Magnus for very long. Magnus bowed and produced from underneath his jacket a small bottle of cherry brandy. “I believe it was your birthday last month, and due to that very unfortunate raid, we were not able to celebrate it. May I toast you with our congratulations?”

Isak puffed out his cheeks and did a quick mental calculation. Yes it probably had been his birthday, the first birthday to go alone and unmarked in the huge tide of war that swept everything along before it; all days being unimportant now save the date you were born and the date you died. He had even lost track of what month it was. He forced a smile. “Thanks Mags.”

“Can I come down? Is it safe?” hissed a female voice from up in the cellar. Magnus sprang up onto Isak’s workstool and gallantly lifted a hand up into the aperture. “Of course, my dear. Come down into our little sanctuary, Miss Hellrud, but be careful, there’s some very hazardous things stored down here. One of which is as you know, our own Mr. Isak Valtersen.”

Isak watched as Vilde, swathed in furs and with a little pillbox hat balancing on her blonde head, clambered down into the cellar, using Magnus’s shoulders as a ladder. “Isak!” she cried, holding her arms wide. “Oh my dear! I haven’t seen you for weeks!”

“Vilde!” said Isak politely, gingerly giving her a hug, trying to avoid getting her clothes dirty from traces of chemicals. “So lovely to see you again!”

Vilde had run their original safe house from the brothel where she worked, but a tip off from a Nazi spy had meant an unexpected raid from the Quisling police, so the Vasquez group had been scattered. Jonas and Isak had taken off their bomb-making workshop to the secret dug-out underneath the cellar, while many of their other agents were holed up around Oslo awaiting instructions. Only a handful of people knew where the workshop – and Isak – was: that way even torture could not make them reveal the secret.

However much Vilde annoyed Isak, he felt tons better for seeing people from the outside world for once, and once embraces were concluded he bombarded them with questions. What was going on outside? How was the resistance going? Had they seen any of their friends? But their arrival made him anxious with good reason; hardly ever was a meeting called at the headquarters, and finally he cut to the chase. “Why are you here, though? What’s going on?”

“There’s an opportunity,” said Magnus impressively. “An opportunity that might not come around again. An opportunity to strike at the heart of the Nazi occupation of Oslo.”

Isak’s head ached. “What on earth are you talking about, Mags?” he groaned, sitting down on the stool and uncorking the bottle of cherry brandy. “That’s all we do every day.”

“No!” Magnus cried passionately. “Tell him, Vilde! Tell him what you told me!”

Vilde cleared her throat and glanced around, although the trapdoor to the cellar above was shut. “You know we supply girls to the Nazi barracks,” she said. Isak shrugged. He knew this already. The girls who entertained the Germans by night kept their ears open, and relayed all sorts of loose talk and secrets back to the Resistance.

“We’ve been asked for a rent-boy for a very important SS officer who is visiting that evening. It’s all to be kept terribly hush-hush for obvious reasons. Nobody is officially to know, and so we thought it would the ideal time -”

“The best opportunity!” broke in Magnus.

“- to set up an assassination attempt. This guy is one of the highest-ups in the SS!”

“- and imagine, because of the secrecy, nobody would even know! It’s the perfect cover!”

“What, wait,” Isak held up his hands for silence. “Who is this guy?”

Vilde’s big blue eyes looked as if they were about to burst out of her face. “It’s Captain-General Wölf, the commander-general of the Schutzstaffel.”

“They call him the Wolf of Brandenburg,” breathed Magnus in a hushed tone. “They say he oversaw the Night of the Long Knives.”

Isak spluttered out a mouthful of cherry wine. “Wölf likes _guys_?”

“He’s the biggest queen that you could imagine,” roared Magnus enthusiastically. “Oh, sorry,” he said as Isak shot him a dead-eye glare. “I just meant, uh, yeah, I don’t know what I meant.”

Isak was suspicious. “Something doesn’t add up, here. Why has he come to Oslo?”

“Well, um,” Vilde looked anxious. “The girls are saying that the Wolf is coming to oversee the removal of … you know, people that they don’t like. Gypsies, and …”

“Jews like Eva, fags like me and commies like Jonas,” finished Isak shortly, fingers tapping on the workbench.

Despite his calm demeanour, his brain was racing.

Like many people on the underground, he knew that the Nazis removed "undesirables" from the countries they conquered and sent them to work camps where conditions were so raw and brutal that many died from cold, hunger and exposure. But recently the Resistance had heard whispers of special camps being built in occupied Poland containing huge ovens and smoking chimneys that reached to the sky, of one-way trains crammed with frightened people, of journeys from which there was no returning. He knew that it was only a matter of time before those one-way trains started to run from Norway too. “This is bad news. First things first we have to get Eva into a safe house. Now that the Wolf is in Oslo, she’s in huge danger.”

“But she’s safe in the Jewish quarter –“ began Vilde but Isak shook his head. “Jews have been arrested for months now, and those who haven’t been arrested have all been registered. They know where Eva is, Vilde. She has to disappear.”

“I’ll fix it,” nodded Vilde, teeth biting into her plump lips. “I’ll find somewhere secret for her.”

“So if we can take the Wolf out, then we can possibly slow down their plans,” said Isak, fists clenched against his knees. “How did he get in touch with you?”

“Wölf’s lieutenant set up the arrangement when he visited the brothel: he’s the only one who knows the secret,” said Vilde ticking off the facts on her fingers. “We’d have to take the lieutenant out at the same time so there’s nothing that will lead back to us. So we’d have to work out what’s the most effective method of … elimination.”

“Blow his head off, the asshole,” said Magnus enthusiastically, aiming an invisible gun at Isak’s head and firing it. “And the other asshole! Boom!”

“A knife is better than a gun for an assassination,” said Isak. “It’s quiet, and you can conceal it better. But if both of them are in the same room it’s harder; you’ll struggle to overpower both of them with just a knife. There’s always poison, but you can’t control whether they’ll take it or not, and a bomb is just too messy and unpredictable, and the only way to ensure success is to make it a suicide mission.”

“The other problem is, we don’t have any rent boys that he likes the look of,” said Vilde, worried. “He was very particular, he wanted straight-acting, short-haired, and tough-looking.”

“Any of our agents can look like that,” said Isak irritably. “All they have to do is get in close quarters with him, they don’t actually have to fuck him.”

“Send Jonas,” giggled Vilde, “time he earned his keep around here.”

“Jonas would never pass as a rent-boy,” objected Magnus, “Next to you, he’s the most recognisable guy in Oslo. You’d look more like a rent-boy than he would, Issy.”

“That’s another thing,” said Vilde, anxiously. “The Wolf wants a guy in only a couple of hours from now. We don’t have enough time to get in touch with another agent and brief him in time.”

There was a brief, baffled silence, broken by Isak abruptly getting to his feet. “I’ll do it.”

The words came out of his mouth without him planning. He’d had enough of being cooped up in this ridiculous underground cellar for weeks. If he was going to do his bit for the war effort, he’d do it standing on his own two feet. If he was going to get captured, he’d do it on a mission with his head held high, not cowering in a bunker like a frightened rabbit.

Magnus stared at him in bewilderment. “But you’re number one on the Most Wanted list! Everyone in Oslo is searching for you! And you’re just going to … _walk right in there_?”

“Why not?” asked Isak crossly. “If it’s as hush-hush as you say, they won’t be expecting me. All they’ll be worried about is being caught.”

“We can cut your hair, and dye it,” said Vilde, catching on to Isak’s plan excitedly. “Your reward picture is a year old and you’ve got long blond hair in that. Cut it all off and change the colour, I bet you’d look a completely different person.”

Magnus enthusiastically picked up Isak’s swiss army knife which lay on the bench and started slicing at Isak’s curls. “Ow, ow!” cried Isak, pulling away. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m cutting your hair,” protested Magnus. “You said you wanted to look different!”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to cut my head off in the process!” bitched Isak, swiping the razor away in indignation.

“Let me do it,” hissed Vilde, taking the razor from Magnus with practiced ease, turning Isak’s head this way and that until his blond hair lay in piles at his feet. “There. How does it feel?”

Isak cautiously ran his hand over his scalp, feeling his hair which measured no more than a quarter of an inch in any direction. It felt cold, scratchy and a little weird.

“Oh my God,” said Magnus in awe from the corner where he watched. “You _do_ look like a completely different person.”

“Just wait,” said Vilde, as from her make-up bag she produced a small pot and some brushes. Mixing some dark powder into a paste, she dyed Isak’s hair dark brown, and tinted his eyebrows. She cut a slash through one eyebrow as if he was marked by an old scar, and stood back to admire her work. “Okay. Now look in the mirror.”

Isak could hardly recognise himself. His short, dark crew cut now showed off his heart-shaped hairline and, with no curls bouncing over his ears, his face was totally reframed. Instead of a shy, golden-haired boy, he had metamorphosed into a tough looking guy easily ten years older, possibly military, and definitely as straight-acting as they came.

“Wow,” said Magnus, entranced. “I’d definitely fuck you.”

Isak stared at himself in the mirror, shook his head this way and that, made himself stand taller, more aggressively, chest thrust out, chin jutting. He practiced a bad-boy snarl and adjusted an imaginary tie, swaggering with all the attitude he could muster. Vilde giggled.

“What’s your cover name, oh rent-boy from Eastern Oslo?” asked Magnus, enraptured.

“Tarjei,” said Isak immediately. “My uncle was called Tarjei.” He winked and clicked his tongue at his reflection, flicking finger-pistols at himself with a flourish. “I think I can pretend that pretty good.”


	5. April Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *FLASHBACK*
> 
> In which Even is woken during an April storm and dropped on his ass in a dangerous mission by the last person he was expecting to see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the 9th April 1940, neutral Norway was invaded and fascist leader Vikrun Quisling declared himself the new prime minster of Norway after he burst into the NRK radio studios in Oslo.
> 
> The Norwegian King Haakon VII refused to accept both the Nazi occupation or Quisling as the new prime minister, and went on the run for nearly two months, hiding in snow covered woods and narrowly escaping bombing by the Luftwaffe. Finally the King escaped from Tromso on the British submarine HMS Devonshire and set up a government in exile in London (I’ve condensed the timeline a bit here to be more dramatic)
> 
> I have used extracts from the King’s real-life radio broadcasts to his people encouraging them to stay strong in the face of Hitler’s invasion.  

 

Even lay in a dark dream of pain, unable to move. He seemed to be pinned down by something by his wrists and ankles. There was a dull pounding in his thigh that pulsed tenderly every time he breathed, but he couldn’t reach down to touch it, indeed couldn’t move any of his limbs at all. He turned his face weakly from side to side, finding it hard to breathe.

He slept.

He dreamed of the night of the April storm last year, the night he had been roughly woken from sleep into a world he no longer recognised.

Alarms had rung shortly after midnight, when German troops started to sail and fly into Norway, invading the ports of Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik. The attack had taken neutral Norway largely by surprise. In the early hours of the morning, all across the country many people were literally waking up to the terror of a Nazi takeover.

A hand was shaking his shoulder, harsh and insistent. “Even! Even! Wake up!”

Even surfaced groggily from sleep, groaning. “What is it? What’s going on?”

“War is starting,” snapped his mother. “Get out of bed and come downstairs at once. There’s a car waiting to take you to the police headquarters.”

“What, what, what?” Even swung his legs dizzily over the side of the bed feeling his head swim. His mother, normally so sweet and polite, was staring at him in shock and terror, her blonde hair on end and no makeup on. “What do you mean, war is starting?”

“Get your clothes on, and get in the bloody car!” his mother shouted.

 

***

 

Even wasn’t prepared for the sight of the young dark-haired Turkish man who leaned out of the driver’s seat of the waiting limousine. “Even! I was worried I’d never find you!”

“Yousef? What the hell?” Even shook his head to clear it as he threw himself in the back of the car. “I thought you were in Oslo?”

“I was, until a few hours ago,” Yousef said succinctly. “German panzer tanks have driven over the border, and U-boats are attacking Oslo fjord. We’ve only got a few hours. It’s my job to brief you, so I’m going to drive us to the emergency war room.”

“Oh my God,” said Even, slapping himself across the face to wake himself up properly. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“You and me both,” said Yousef crisply, swinging the wheel of the car around in a racing turn. “The shit is properly about to hit the fan.”

Yousef had been at the same year as Even in UiO, although he hadn’t been on the same course, studying politics whereas Even had specialised in art history. The son of the Turkish diplomat in Oslo, Yousef had been a pretty good friend of his, although his Muslim upbringing meant he didn’t frequent the more alcohol-sodden and debauched places that Even would visit with Willhelm and Christoffer Schistad. For his part, Even had delighted in learning more about Islam and Turkey, now modernised under its leader Kemal Ataturk, and had long conversations with Yousef about the meaning of life and the existence of God in his plush apartments after lectures. The young Turk had even introduced the Norwegian to a whole range of Middle Eastern foods – hummous, stuffed vine leaves, and baklava – that Even had never known existed.

After they’d graduated, Yousef had become the Turkish attaché in Oslo, which meant that Even hadn’t seen a whole lot of him, especially once Even’s own father had got him a job in the police force in Tromso. He certainly hadn’t been expecting to be woken by his old friend in the middle of the night and driven at top speed to a _war cabinet meeting_ , for goodness sake.

_So the Nazis had actually invaded a neutral country – Oh fuck._

“Hold tight,” called out Yousef over his shoulder. “We’re here.”

Even’s hands flew up on to the seat in front to brace himself as Yousef screeched to a halt in front of the Tromso civil hall. Outside a small Norwegian army unit surged towards them with guns, but at the sight of the diplomatic car and licence plates, they stood aside and let Yousef drive through to the central courtyard where a barrier slammed shut behind them. To his surprise, a British naval officer saluted and held the door open as he motioned them out.

“Is he still here?” asked Yousef curtly, and the officer nodded. “Yes, sir. The _HMS Devonshire_ is waiting just offshore.”

“Who’s still here?” asked Even, confused. “What’s the HMS Devonshire? What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain everything when we get upstairs,” shouted Yousef over his shoulder as he led the way leaping up the red-carpeted stairs, Even running bewildered behind him. “Hold onto your hat. Things are about to get crazy.”

 

***

 

However crazy Even had expected things to become, he hadn’t expected them to be _this_ crazy. The first face he saw as Yousef led the way into the war meeting was that of King Haakon VII, his face tired and lined from days without sleep, but still instantly recognisable with his large, pointed moustache and his high forehead. With the King were a few of his ministers and officers, all looking as if they had travelled overnight without rest or a change of clothes. They looked up in surprise as Yousef ushered Even in.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the current head of police in Tromso, and my good friend, Even Bech Naesheim.”

Even bowed and responded courteously. Yousef introduced the others of the war cabinet briefly: including the British envoy, Sir Cecil Dormer, a long-nosed Englishman with a bald head and round horn-rimmed glasses. Next to the King sat a few members of his staff, the Norwegian head of police, and a large-eyed young woman in a headscarf adjusting a radio transmission set.

“And finally, this is Miss Sana Bakkoush,” said Yousef, indicating the last member of the small war cabinet. “She’s one of our best agents in the fight against General-Leutnant Rommel in the North Africa campaign and a radio communications genius. And,” he smiled somewhat abashed, “my fiancée.”

“How lovely,” said Sir Cecil in his crystal-cut British accent, smiling a smooth smile that did not reach his eyes. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

But King Haakon was furious and in no mind to wait around on pleasantries. “What the hell are you British playing at?” he shouted at the Englishman. “You said you would lay mines around the fjords to stop Hitler invading!”

Sir Cecil cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Laying the mines was pushed back a few days,” he said, not meeting the King’s eyes. “It seems the Germans took advantage of that delay.”

“But your submarines are waiting off our western coast!” exclaimed the King. “Why can you Allies not drive Hitler back with all the firepower you have?”

The British diplomat laid his long fingers together and sighed. “Norway was woefully unprepared for this war,” he said carefully. “Your decision to be neutral for as long as possible cost you dearly. Now your own ministers have said that they do not think that you can push back German troops, even with Allied support. You cannot lay all the blame at our door.”

“We’ve just received word that Vikrun Quisling broke into the NRK studios in Oslo live on air, sir,” put in Sana, who had been listening intently into her headphones. “He is pronouncing himself the new prime minister of Norway.”

“That fascist?” swore the King, horrified. “I will never support him. My government should never collaborate with the Nazis. I would abdicate rather than do this.”

Sir Cecil leaned forward. “It seems that you have no option, King Haakon, but to evacuate from Norway and come to London,” he said carefully. “We will work together to defeat Hitler from there.”

“In exile? I cannot leave my country!” protested the King. “I will not leave my people!”

“I’m afraid you may not have a choice, sir,” said Sir Cecil in his diplomatic, chilling voice. “My orders are to bring you to London, _willing or unwilling_. You cannot fall into enemy hands, sir.”

“I will not collaborate with the Nazis,” shouted the King. “I have told them, I will not accept them as our rulers. I will abdicate before I do that!”

The King swung around, glaring at his ministers, and the Chief of Police nodded. “You are right not to collaborate with the invaders, sir, but do not abdicate. You are the last hope of our rulers. If the Nazis capture our royal family, then they have a huge feather in their cap. They may broadcast all sorts of propaganda in your name, or they may execute you to show their absolute power. To continue true resistance, you must leave the country and let your people know that you will never recognise Hitler as our leader.”

“We’ve just heard that our fortress has torpedoed the German warship _Blucher_ carrying a thousand Gestapo in Oslofijord,” put in the Norwegian War Minister. “We can hold them off while you escape, sir, but if the Germans advance as they are, in a matter of a month or two, the whole country will be overrun.”

The King subsided, glaring at the table in fury. “But then what can we do? How can we protect my country?”

“A network of spies,” said Yousef, speaking for the first time since the King’s outburst. “Trustworthy friends who we know of old, already in high positions around the country, must pretend to collaborate with the invaders. Through these networks they must feedback information to help us overthrow the occupation from within.”

Those seated around the table glanced at Yousef with new respect. “Miss Bakkoush has designed a special radio set that can be assembled in five minutes from innocuous looking components,” said Yousef with pride. “Transmissions on the C23 channel will be relayed directly to a special war room in London. Spies operating here will be able to build a full picture of Nazi operations in Norway, and communicate in secret with their opposite numbers in London to hasten the overthrow of the Germans.”

“But who will be these spies?” asked the King. “Who will take such a risk?”

Even’s stomach clenched as Yousef raised an eyebrow at him. “Mr. Bech Naesheim is the first of those spies that I propose,” said his friend seriously. “He has perfect cover; he is a couple of years into his post as chief of police in Tromso, he is of white Christian conservative stock, his late father was respected in the community, so he will attract no attention. I myself can vouch for his character. He was one of my dearest friends at university, I a Muslim, know that he holds no love in his heart for fascists or those who oppress and murder people because of their religion.”

Even felt an absurd impulse to laugh. Was this why Yousef had dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night? And what was all that stuff about him being a Muslim? He knew as well as anybody that Yousef was an atheist.

But for all that, Yousef was right. Who would suspect a well-established chief of police of being a spy?

His quick mind ran through all the implications of what Yousef had said. He was being asked, with absolutely no time to ponder the options, to enter into the most dangerous profession there was. A profession that most often led to its practitioners being captured and shot, or ending up in torture rooms and buried minus their fingers or their teeth. A profession that you could never talk about to your nearest and dearest. A profession which meant you should trust nobody, even those you thought you knew. A profession that at its best meant that you passed unnoticed, and at its worst that you disappeared forever.

“Is this true?” asked the King, turning to him. “Would you accept this mission?”

Even held his breath. This was very real. The King was asking him to become a spy. He hesitated.  

“Do you swear?” asked the King, gazing at Even sternly. “Do you swear to serve your country in the most difficult of ways?”

“I swear, your majesty,” muttered Even, and he meant it. The King’s eyes were fierce as he gazed at him.

“Are you sure? You will have to say things that you wish you never said. You will have to pretend that you enjoy things that make you sick to your stomach. You will have to laugh at the enemy’s jokes and sit by as he violates and abuses others. Are you willing to do this, for the greater good?”

Even swallowed. “I am, sir.”

“Are you willing to let one man die so that two men may live? Are you willing to send agents to almost certain death on the hope that one day, peace may return to Norway? Are you willing to go against your own principles and morals, and follow only the instructions issued by me and the government-in-exile, trusting always that we hold the best interests of you and all people of Norway at heart?”

“I do, sir,” said Even softly. He did not trust himself to look over at Yousef, even though he knew that his friend’s eyes were fixed worriedly on him, analysing his reaction.

 _Damn you, Yousef,_ he thought tiredly to himself. _You chose the one guy that you knew would never refuse._

“We must go,” said Sir Cecil, polishing his glasses on his Windsor tie. “The storm is subsiding and the submarine is ready. We have only a small window before the U-boats arrive to bring you back to London.”

“I have never known a war fought yet where the leader is not in the same country,” said the King, angry and defeated, pushing himself back from the table. “Here I go, safe in a boat of iron and steel, while men like _him_ – “he pointed at Even, “risk their lives for all of us.”

“It is the way of the world,” said Sir Cecil, sending a slippery smile across the table at Even. “You are worth more in London and he is worth more in Norway. Come, your majesty. Your submarine awaits.”

“Before you leave, will you send a message to your people?” Sana leaned forward, adjusting a knob on the set so that it whined and hissed. “Let them know you have not abandoned them.”

The King stiffened, his face white with fury. “I will never abandon them.”

“Then let them hear you say it,” said Sana. “Your country is in chaos. Send a last message to your people. Let them hear you speak.”

The King reached out his hand, steadied the microphone, and took a deep breath. Sana attached the earphones to him and adjusted the dials until they heard the buzz of an open radio channel. “Speak,” she said to the King. “This is your last chance.”

After a second, the King’s voice crackled through the airwaves, reaching into the very innermost heart of Norway, sending a last message to his citizens, to the men, women and children clustered fearfully around radio sets in houses, halls and offices across the country, searching for any words of hope against the dark terror of the Nazi invasion.

 _“In this most difficult time that my people and my country find themselves in,”_ said the King, _“I ask all Norwegian women and men to do all they can to save freedom and independence for our dear fatherland.”_

Yousef’s eyes met Even’s, an unspoken _I’m sorry_ radiating from them. Even looked down, not trusting himself to look back, as the King continued.

_“The responsibility for the calamities that will befall people and country is so grave that I dread to take it. But my position is clear. For my part I cannot accept the German demands. It would conflict with all that I have considered to be my duty as King of Norway since I came to this country nearly thirty-five years ago.”_

The King swallowed and took a deep breath, looking at Even before he turned away for the last time. 

_“God save Norway.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanted to have a bit more of Even's internal voice, so I thought I'd move the story along a bit so that we can see how he became a spy in the first place ... Unfortunately there's still a lot of complications coming up - being a double-agent is FAR from pretty! How will this affect Even's pursuit of Agent Valtersen? Will Christoffer become suspicious? And what's gonna happen now that Isak is out in the field on his rent boy mission? Stay tuned for more danger! next update coming soon!


	6. Big Bang Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Isak’s mission as a rent-boy to an SS officer gets blown sky-high
> 
> SOME POSSIBLE TRIGGERS of attempted and implied non-con at beginning, but Isak is okay I promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I googled “how to make a home-made bomb” so you don’t have to. I'm definitely on the MI6 "persons of interest" for my latest Google searches lmao.

Dressed as his new alter-ego Tarjei, Isak swaggered down the dark alley towards the address that Magnus had given him for his liaison with the Wolf of Brandenburg.

If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. Vilde had worked her magic on him and he had to admit, he looked pretty good. He wore a battered, dark blue close-fitting suit and a white shirt; to all intents and purposes an ex-soldier fallen on hard times, a cheeky-chappie willing to do anything and anyone to earn a few coins. Vilde had even managed to fake a shadow of stubble on his chin, after she’d insisted on rubbing make-up into his neck and the backs of his hands to simulate a tan. “You can’t look like you’ve been hiding underground for months,” she said insistently.

Despite his successful disguise, Isak blew out his cheeks and summoned his courage for a few seconds before he approached the house. Like many of the SS and the Gestapo’s high-ranking officers, the Wolf had taken over a villa in a formerly wealthy area of Oslo, now guarded by military tanks on every corner. The Wolf’s lieutenant had given Magnus a pass to get his rent-boy through the roadblocks, and it worked like a dream: upon production at the many barriers, the officers glanced only at the black eagle and the Wolf’s red-inked signature to wave him through. As the fourth of these checkpoints fell back behind him, Isak was feeling distinctly perturbed as he saw the scale of what he was getting himself into. Even the thin blade of the stiletto knife concealed in the sole of his shoe gave him little comfort.

Assassinating the Wolf was one thing; making it out alive was another.

 _Keep calm_ , he told himself. _Get in there first, and see what you will see._

The lieutenant that answered the door was a pretty, pale-faced boy, with ginger floppy hair and blue long-lashed eyes. The grey SS uniform sat too tightly on him, and his jackboots were cut so that they practically rose up to his thighs. Isak could see at a glance how he had been so quickly promoted to become the Wolf’s personal assistant.

The lieutenant ushered him in from the street hurriedly. “In here, quick. Can’t have the whole street looking for you.”

Isak eyed him up and down consideringly. The boy didn’t seem particularly strong, and he was fairly confident that he could overpower him before he could make a sound. But the lieutenant misread his intentions and returned his stare with frank arousal, white teeth biting into his plump lip, eyes running over every line of Isak’s body.

“He fucks you hard, you know,” he said breathily, in Berlin-accented German. “I hope you’re ready prepped, you’re going to need it.”

From the room beyond Isak heard a door slam and behind it he could hear coarse male laughter and the clink of glasses. His blood ran suddenly cold.

“Isn’t this meeting … private?” he stuttered in his best German.

“What?” The lieutenant looked at him in surprise. “Of course it isn’t. Wolf always invites his friends to his parties. You’ll be in great demand this evening, you can be sure of that.”

 _Fuck._ Isak couldn’t move. He had misjudged this _badly._

“Where’s … where is he now?” Isak got out between ground teeth. His first impulse was to knock the boy out with a well-placed punch and make a run for it. But he couldn’t make a move before he knew precisely where the Wolf was.

“Your commander is here,” said a throaty voice from behind in a thick Bavarian accent. “The pleasure is going to be all mine.”

Isak turned, and his confidence nearly failed him. Never in a million years had he expected _this._

The Wolf was massive. Colossal. The blurred newspaper photographs that Magnus had showed him did not do him justice. Six foot five at least, with broad shoulders and a huge belly, he stood naked in the doorway, wearing only a purple silk robe wound carelessly around him. His balding head was shiny with sweat and a cigar dangled from one hand. The mouth that opened in a slack, aroused grin showed yellowed teeth and cracked, browned lips. For a moment the singing of fear in Isak’s ears was so loud that he could not hear a thing.

“Have you frisked him yet?” enquired the Wolf of his lieutenant, and the lieutenant shook his head. “Not yet sir, I was just about to do that, sir.”

“No matter,” rumbled the Wolf, coming towards Isak, towering over him and looking at him as if he was a snack he was about to devour. “I’ll check him over.”

Isak braced himself as the Wolf turned him over and spread his arms and legs wide, feeling the rough paws running up and down his limbs, forcing themselves under his clothes, fingers pitilessly probing his stomach, his ribs, his buttocks. He was grateful for the discreet blade hidden inside his shoe; a less well-concealed weapon would have been discovered in no time and then everything would have been up before it had even started.

“Legs apart,” grunted the Wolf. “Need to check you’re not carrying anything where the sun don’t shine.”

Isak gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. As the Wolf frisked him roughly between his legs he drew in his breath in sudden pain, and heard a low grunt of arousal in response. Turning Isak round like a doll, the Wolf pulled Isak’s head back and opened his mouth casually with two thick fingers, examining as dispassionately as a doctor the space under his tongue and the inside of his cheeks.

“All clear,” he rumbled in Isak’s ear. “You’d be surprised how many boys try to bring a knife in here thinking they’re a fucking hero or something. Come on, let’s warm you up a little, shall we?”

“Let’s get started,” giggled the lieutenant. “Show him a bit of Reich hospitality.”

The Wolf swung his meaty cock into Isak’s palm and pressed his fingers around it, thrusting himself through Isak’s curled-up fist. “Thought I’d get a little taster of you out here, before my friends have a turn. Never was much for sloppy seconds.”

Isak froze. The Wolf’s junk was flickering in his hand, swelling at an alarming rate as if it was a horse or donkey cock, bulging through his fingers until the tip grazed against Isak’s stomach, nuzzling against him greedily. He drew in his breath in involuntary horror, and tried to inch his hand down his leg to work his knife free, but the Wolf groaned and rolled his massive bulk against Isak, nudging him backwards over the table.

The lieutenant craned to see, panting in suppressed excitement, tugging unashamedly at his crotch. Isak tried to pull his arm free without alerting the Wolf’s suspicions, but he was no match for the larger man, crushed underneath him with his hot breath tickling his ear, the scratch of his battered chin grazing his neck.

For a moment Isak had absolutely no idea what to do. He wasn’t a seasoned on-the-ground agent like Jonas, and he had little experience of hand to hand combat, especially on a man almost twice his size. He cursed himself frantically for having gotten himself into this mess. Jonas would know what to do, he wouldn’t let himself be bent over by a huge sweating Nazi, about to be –

_How the fuck am I going to get out of this one –_

“Can I use your bathroom, sir?” he gasped in his best German. “I had a long journey and I need to get prepped for you.”

“Hmmm?” murmured the Wolf, licking at Isak’s bottom lip lasciviously. Isak could smell the sour smell of whisky on his breath. “I don’t mind. I like my men nice and tight.”

“Uh, yes,” stammered Isak hastily, “but your friends might want things to be a little, uh, easier, so I should really get cleaned up first.”

“If you insist,” grunted the Wolf dreamily, his tongue lolling into Isak’s mouth like a putrid fish, large hands groping their way between Isak’s legs. “You’ll have to be quick, though. My friends won’t like to wait.”

Isak tried to flinch away but the Wolf’s massive jaws were devouring his mouth like a hungry dog. With difficulty he twisted his face clear, trying not to recoil in disgust. “I promise I’ll only be five minutes. How many of you are there?”

“Oh just ten of my closest friends,” smiled the Wolf, pushing Isak’s head down towards his heavy, swollen cock, “nothing you won’t be able to manage, I’m sure.”

 

***

 

Isak slammed the bathroom door shut and pressed his back to it, retching dry heaves. His knees were shaking and he felt sick to his stomach. With difficulty he had managed to pry the Wolf off him, by insisting that he would only be a minute to get naked and clean himself properly, but he still shuddered as he felt the Wolf’s rancid saliva drying on his lips and the brutal imprints of his fingers over his body.

For one ghastly moment he had thought that the Wolf would wrestle him down and violate him there and then, but thankfully the Wolf had abruptly let him go and turned impatiently to his lieutenant.

“I don’t want to keep my friends waiting,” he growled, irritably. “You’d better get in there as the warm-up act.”

“But I had to sub for everyone last time,” protested the lieutenant. “I thought this time I could have a piece of the action.”

The Wolf glared at him, and with one massive hand propelled the lieutenant through the door to the party beyond. “You get in there and keep them happy, you understand?”

“But sir,” shrieked the lieutenant, but his cry was cut off abruptly as the door closed behind him and a burst of cheering came from the inner room.

Turning to Isak, the Wolf thrust his face right up to his until their noses were practically touching.

“Now listen. I’ve paid a lot for you, and I expect good service. Go get yourself cleaned up then, and make sure you put on a good show for tonight. You’re not leaving until you’ve sucked and fucked every man in here at least twice. You hear?”

 

***

 

Isak paced around in the bathroom frantically like a trapped mouse, beating his fists desperately against his cheeks. _Shit, shit, shit,_ he thought to himself. _How could I have been so stupid?_

 There was no window in the bathroom, and no possibility of escape. He shuddered in fear. The bathroom was directly underneath the salon where the party was taking place. Above him he could hear the dreadful thumps of booted feet moving around, the noise of ribald encouragement and the muffled cries of the lieutenant.

 _Oh God_ , he thought to himself _. I’m a dead man. There’s no way I’m going to survive this, one way or the other._

Sinking to his knees, he leaned his forehead on the cupboard door under the sink, groaning. He had only one thin blade to take on twelve strong and well-fed Nazis, and he knew that it would not be in any way enough.

 _Jonas, Jonas,_ he thought wildly to himself. _Help me, please._

He tried to imagine what his friend would do in his situation, but kept running up against blanks. The Ghost wouldn’t have been this _stupid_ , he knew. However, some good angel above was obviously smiling down upon his dark counterpart, for as Isak knelt there, face pressed against the cupboard, even in the midst of his despair, he caught a whiff of bleach which tickled and stung at his nose.

_Hang on -_

For a moment he knelt motionless, then pulled the cupboard door open to find a small recess full of domestic cleaning products. Bottles of household cleaning chemicals stood there, together with bleach, soap, scrubbing brushes, rubber gloves, and various other jars and bottles.

A brief flicker of hope started to burn in Isak’s chest.

_Maybe …._

Like every chemistry student Isak knew how to make an explosion by mixing ordinary household cleaning products together, and he hadn’t been top of his class for nothing. He knew that the best effects were given by combining common household bleach with domestic acid-based drain cleaner. In chemical terms, the active ingredient in bleach - sodium hypochlorite – reacts with the hydrochloric acid in drain cleaner to make a huge explosion. In the right quantities, the explosion can emit dangerous chlorine gas which when inhaled, attacks the membranes of the lungs and nostrils and can prove fatal.

Isak had once impressed Jonas by blowing up the metal gateposts at Jonas’s parents’ country villa using exactly this method, and he remembered the huge stinking white clouds of smoke that the blast had produced. In the method of synthesis it wasn’t a million miles away from the explosives made from ammonium-nitrate fertilizer mixed with gasoline that the Resistance often used to weaken bridges and derail trains.

The question was, could he make a big enough explosion to take out the villa and the partygoers while not killing himself in the process?

Quickly he emptied the cupboard and inspected the contents. Three bottles of bleach, two of drain cleaner, some cleaning salt and tar soap. They were mainly full, which gave him approximately eight cubic litres of raw ingredient. A search through the back of the cupboard produced a metal bucket and a few large empty milk bottles and glass jars.

Isak knew that the success of a bomb was calculated by the amount of energy released from a specified mass of the explosive, and that it all depended on where the bomb was placed in a building for it to have maximum impact. The heat of detonation of such an explosive would be 6.5 × 10⁶ joules per kilogram, about the same as that of TNT. Thus, he estimated, the detonation of 1 pound of explosive would release 3.0 × 10⁶ joules of energy. The eight litres of product he had made just over 17 pounds of explosive.

He groaned in frustration. 17 pounds was nowhere near enough. You needed at least 500 pounds of explosive to take down a large building, especially one of concrete and reinforced metal. To breach a concrete wall about 16 inches thick you needed 10 pounds to create a hole about 30 inches across. For every 8 inches of reinforced concrete, 2 1/2 pounds would blow a hole roughly a foot across.

So in order for his seventeen pounds of explosive to matter, he would have to put it in critical structural locations, and as close to the Nazis as possible.

His one big piece of luck, he realised, was that all the Nazis were together in one place, immediately above him in a thin-walled lounge, meaning that the explosions could be concentrated around them for maximum effect.

“Where’s that goddamned rent boy?” the Wolf bawled from above. “We’re losing money here!”

“Coming!” Isak shouted back, his heart leaping in his throat. “Nearly ready!”

Isak had synthesised many bombs before during his time on the run, often in extreme danger and against the clock. However this was probably the most perilous situation he had ever worked in. _No time to panic now,_ his calm scientific brain told him, and Isak obeyed, forcing himself to think only of the equations. Precision was everything in chemistry, and he had no measuring glass, but luckily from his vast bombmaking experience, he could estimate volumes almost to the last millimetre.

Lining up the five large bottles, he mixed the products in their respective proportions, before corking them using plugs of cleaning soap. This gave him five bottles of around two pounds strength of explosive, of which two bottles together would be to rupture a wall. The iron bucket he used to mix the remainder of the fluids and sat it on top of the toilet cistern at the highest point of the bathroom. The iron of the bucket made the acid start to bubble straight away. Isak knew he had only a few minutes to position the rest of the charges.

Running up the deserted stairs, he paused and listened, hearing only the coarse whoops and cheers coming from inside the lounge. Behind the first door he placed two bottles – already starting to bubble ominously – and quickly scooted down the hallway to position two more on the door at the other side of the lounge. As he ran quickly away, he heard the prickling splintering sound coming from the glass as bubbles of gaseous chlorine began to form.

It was only a matter of time.

The last bottle he put against the front door, which had been locked and bolted. It was easily enough explosive to blow the door open, as Isak had no intention of being trapped inside the inferno which would follow. He wet his jacket with water, wrapped it around his face, threw himself on the carpeted floor, covered his ears and waited.

Above him the door opened and Isak heard the clink of glasses and the chatter of voices, mingled with the lieutenant’s muffled sobs. “Tarjei!” roared the Wolf. “Get your tight little arse up here RIGHT NOW!”

Isak stiffened, raising his head slightly to see the Wolf stalking down the steps towards the bathroom. “Tarjei!” he shouted. “Where the fuck have you gone?”

A brief, startled pause and Isak realised that the Wolf had seen the two bottles he had left next to the wall. He heard a guttural shout, and moments later a high-pitched screaming fizzing noise as the first of the charges exploded.

“NOOOO!” howled the Wolf as a wall of flame erupted underneath him, and a wave of white gas exploded heavenwards. Seconds later the next charges caught, cracking the fragile wall of the lounge and sending it toppling inwards, crushing the partygoers underneath. Screams and shouts ripped through the air, to be abruptly cut off as the floor disappeared beneath them in a blinding flash. The bucket bomb immediately beneath the lounge had exploded, taking them all with it.

It was as if the air turned liquid, and light turned in on itself, going first blindingly white and then pitch black. A wave of hot air seared over him, scorching his back and shattering the windows. Isak had never been caught in the path of one of his own bombs before, and he had no plans to repeat the experience. Trembling on the floor with the force of the explosion, he knew that if he stayed too long, the gas produced by the explosion would kill him within seconds.

 _Get up! Get up you fool!_ His inner brain was screaming at him, and he willed his body to obey.

Keeping the wet jacket pressed against his mouth and nose, he raised his head, and saw that for some reason the front-door bomb had not ignited. But the back wall of the house had been rent apart and through the dust and smoke he could see a glimpse of the filthy alleyway down which he had come. The bucket bomb had done its work.

When he tried to run, he was a mess. It was as if the bomb had taken all the sinews out of him, so that his legs bent awkwardly and it was an effort to hold himself up. His ears were ringing and his balance had been badly affected: later he was to find that both his eardrums had been blown out. Nevertheless he managed to roll painfully through the small hole blown in the shattered wall, and lurched down the alleyway towards the main streets. The next second the last bottle-bomb exploded and ignited the dense cloud of chlorine gas, sending a bolt of fire upwards into the night sky.

Alarms were ringing and vehicles and ambulances started to race chaotically through the streets after the first shock of the explosion. For Isak it was as if he was hearing noises underwater, dark and echoing. He dragged himself through the shadows, holding onto the wall like a drunken man. Around the corner he could already hear the sound of booted feet racing towards the scene. _They’ll catch me,_ he thought, pulling the knife and holding it wavering in front of him. _They’ll catch me, but I won’t go with them alive._

Stumbling, dizzy, he was an easy target for anyone who saw him, and so when a vehicle screeched off the main street towards him he tripped and almost fell across his bonnet. He should run, he thought confusedly to himself, but he felt tired, so tired …

Strong hands were holding him, dragging him, manhandling him into the back of a delivery van that said THE BEST APPLES IN NORWAY. He tried to feebly push them away, but he was too weak, and collapsed on the ground, his mind splitting in pain as he felt himself being shaken. A voice was shouting urgently in his ear, and his head whirled as through the dust and smoke he saw Jonas’s face, beetle-browed and furious, inches from his own. .

“ _Get in the van you stupid bastard_!” hissed Jonas. “You nearly killed yourself! What the fuck did you think you were doing, taking out the entire SS living quarters single-handed?”

“You did it!” Magnus at the wheel was shouting excitedly. “You sent the whole lot of them up in smoke!”

“He’s hurt,” cried Vilde, holding his head and patting at his cheek. “Isak, can you hear me?”

But Isak couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. His last sight was of Jonas, holding him safe in his arms in _that_ way, giving him that deep and searching look that he craved, before his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell down, down, down into blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this does work according to various videos on YouTube but DONT try this at home, folks!


	7. Brighter Than A Thousand Suns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Even wakes up naked and tied to a bed by Penetrator Chris. Don't worry, it's all for a good cause, and you'll learn more than you ever needed to know about atomic fission. 
> 
> But has Chris discovered the existence of Even's secret radio set? And what's the new info about Isak Valtersen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the 1930’s, the race to create a super-bomb through the new method of atomic-fission – the “atomic bomb” – was on in earnest. Between 1939 and 1945, the UK, the USA, Russia and Germany battled to produce an atomic bomb first.
> 
> Albert Einstein had suggested in his theory of relativity – the famous “E=mc2” – that there might be a way to release the energy locked up in an atom's mass by splitting its nucleus (the equation literally means, energy produced by something's mass x the speed of light squared).
> 
> German scientists led the world in early atomic experiments, and after Hitler took power he oversaw the Nazi-controlled “Uranium Club” atomic project headed by Walter Heisenberg. The American atomic mission (“Manhattan Project”) was led by Robert Oppenheimer, which produced a workable atomic bomb (nicknamed “Trinity”) in 1945. Upon Trinity’s detonation, Oppenheimer quoted from the Hindu holy text The Baghavad Gita: 
> 
> “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one …. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

 

Even felt himself being dragged up from the sickening fog in which he had spent the last few days. A hand was shaking roughly at his shoulder.

_Even! Even! Wake up!_

_Not again_ , he groaned to himself. Sometimes it felt as if the entire past year had been nothing but a bad dream.

“Wake up, you little bitch!” shouted a voice in his ear, followed by a drenching cold douche of _aquavit_ that made Even gasp, shiver and blink his eyes open in confusion. Above him, Christoffer Schistad was glaring at him, his hair wild and unkempt.

“You’d better wake the fuck up, Naesheim!” snapped Christoffer angrily.

Christoffer looked like hell. He didn’t appear to have changed his uniform in days, and his eyes were puffy and shadowed with grey. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick, and he smoked a cigarette in brief, darting bursts as he paced up and down, ranting incoherently at the walls.

“What happened?” groaned Even feebly. “Why the hell did you shoot me?”

But Christoffer wasn’t listening. “He’s been at it again!” he shouted furiously. “Right under our noses!”

“What, what, who?” asked Even, bewildered. “What’s going on?”

Christoffer flung the _aquavit_ glass at the opposite wall where it smashed, splinters bouncing in all directions. “Valtersen of course, who else? Strolled right in to a private SS orgy last night and blew them all to hell! God knows how, our people are still investigating!”

Even struggled upright, or as far as he could before his bonds abruptly stopped him. He looked down. He was lying in the Magnusson hotel bed with his arms and legs strapped to the four-posters, and a bandage wrapped round his thigh. He shook at his imprisoning straps uselessly, wincing at the darting pain shooting up his leg.

“Why the hell did you _shoot_ me, Christoffer?”

But Christoffer ignored him. “Strolled right in,” he screamed furiously, “posing as some kind of rent-boy! Shaved his head, dyed his hair, and wore a suit straight out of some faggot bar, but I _know_ it was him! That bomb he made had his fingerprints all over it!”

Even shook his head to clear it, his quick mind racing to try to get a handle on events. It was clear he had been unconscious for some time. His leg had been cleaned and dressed, and under the thin cotton sheets he could feel that he was naked. He blushed uncomfortably, realising that Chris would have been the one who undressed him.

“Why have you got me tied up? Untie me, please,” he said calmly, but Chris wheeled on him angrily.

“Have you any idea what kind of a night I’ve had?” stormed Chris. “I’ve been up all night trying to cover our tracks. If for one moment they discover that Wolf and his friends were homo, the trail could lead back to me! To you! We’re all in danger of being arrested! All of us, you included!”

“Why me?” asked Even, shocked. “What have I done?”

Christoffer laughed fiercely. “Are you seriously telling me that you don’t like guys? Or do you really think that if I get arrested by the Gestapo, all of my _friends_ won’t be arrested with me?”

“Chris, listen,” Even began, wheedlingly, despite the alarm rising in his chest. It was plain that he had to calm Chris first, to have any clear idea of what had been going on, or to have any chance of being untied. But at his name Chris screamed, beating at his own face in distress, as if he was in some kind of inner pain.

 “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” asked Even, concerned.

Chris sank down onto the bed, uncomfortably pressing on Even’s sore leg, and Even saw to his surprise that he was sobbing; tears streaming down his face like a child.

“He killed him. Valtersen killed him. Oh God!”

“Who? What?” asked Even, now very concerned that Chris would actually have a breakdown in front of him without releasing him first. “Who has been killed?”

Chris turned his face to him and buried it in his shoulder. Even could barely make out the muffled words. “Franz. Lieutenant Franz Jung. We’d been seeing each other for a few weeks. I thought he was different. He wasn’t like the usual SS boors, he was kind, and he was sweet. He was _good_ to me. Plenty of those Nazi bastards aren’t, they treat Norwegian boys like shit, but Franzi …”

Even took a deep breath. “That’s rough. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Chris nodded, tears spilling onto Even’s bare shoulder. “Franzi got reassigned to Wolf’s compound once Wolf arrived so we weren’t really seeing each other anymore, but I missed him. I knew they had parties with rent-boys there, but I was never invited to go. SS and Gestapo only, you know. But yesterday night … Valtersen bombed the whole place, Even. Killed everyone – Wolf, Franzi, and eleven other SS and Gestapo.”

“How do you know it was Valtersen?” asked Even curiously. “It was a rent-boy, you said?”

Chris shook his head mutinously. “There’s only one person in all of Oslo who can make an explosion as big as that without a mobile chemical factory and teams of scientists, and that's the Dark Angel. On a hunch I showed one of the barrier guards a picture of Valtersen, and he said it was the same face! This is what he looks like now, by the way.”

He held up a pencil sketch drawing, of the type often used to identify criminals and convicts. Even squinted at it. It was indeed of Valtersen, but a Valtersen much changed from the young, innocent-looking university graduate that Willhelm had shown him the other week. Even trembled slightly as he took in the heart-shaped face, the close-cropped hair, the slender, cupid’s bow lips curved in a hint of a sardonic smile, the long-lashed eyes that regarded the viewer with cynical amusement.

Valtersen seemed to have aged ten years at least, but it was his expression that Even couldn’t get over: the fresh bloom of his innocence had been swept away, and in its place had crept a world-weary look of sadness. Even so, his arresting beauty remained, and even in that harsh pencil sketch his face seemed to Even to shine brighter than a thousand suns. Even stared at his picture a minute too long before he started to listen to Chris again.

“He’s going by the name of Tarjei now, ex-military, sex worker, blue suit. Now you listen to me. This is personal now, you hear me, Naesheim?” Chris forced his face next to Even’s, fingers gripping painfully into his cheek, staring at him anguished. “You find Valtersen _soon_ , or we’re ALL dead. All of us! No fucking about!”

“Okay, okay,” said Even quickly, “I’ll find him. Don’t worry.”

Chris released Even and stepped back, his face dark, breathing heavily.

“On second thoughts, I’ll kill you if you _don’t_ find him. You’ve got a week. Hear me? A _week.”_

 

***

 

When Chris had left, slamming the door behind him – thankfully having calmed down enough to untie Even before he did so – Even took a while to drag himself painfully off the bed and limp to the window. He was shaking all over, as much as from fear as from his injury; his head swam and his body felt light and feverish.

The first thing he did was inspect his leg, and was relieved to discover that the bone and sinew had suffered no damage, it was a clean shot through the flesh of the thigh, just grazing the muscle. Chris had known what he was doing. An injured, limping Norwegian would have both a good cover story for suspicious Resistance fighters, and would also be much easier to track – or kill. He wasn't surprised that Chris had tied him up while the wound healed; if he'd had the full use of his limbs he might have made his escape. 

He didn’t have much time. With Christoffer going mad with grief and the recent sex party disaster that could expose anyone with homosexual inclinations in SAPO, the mission was _fucked._ He had to bail – _now_.

And there was only one person that he could call on to get him out.

Quaking with fever, he knelt down awkwardly and reached for his suitcase in the bottom of the wardrobe. He could tell Christoffer had been through the case, as he knew he would, his clothes were all messed up and his books had been tossed around. But the important thing was that Chris hadn’t discovered Even’s best-kept secret; the way that the suitcase could, with a few alterations, transform into a lightweight radio transmission set, decoder and scrambler.

Emptying the suitcase, he detached the handle and drew out a slender radio aerial. From the leather at the sides, he gently extracted a coil of 26 gauge magnet wire that had been cunningly concealed in the stitching, and unsnapped the hinges which reversed to create alligator clips. The germanium diode was secreted in the lock, as was the small mouthpiece. The back of the suitcase could be removed to provide the radio board upon which Even could mount the various components, before tuning in to the scrambled radio channel.

Assembling the radio took exactly five minutes. As Yousef had said, Sana Bakkoush was a bit of a genius at designing this kind of thing.  

 

***

 

The London transmission took a while to come through, and Even was biting his knuckles in anxiety for some minutes before the crackling and screaming subsided, and a low buzz filled the air. A man with a BBC accent said, “London receiving,” and Even gasped with relief.

“This is 2121 – 051 – 3332,” he said rapidly into the receiver, giving his agent code, location, and handler reference. “Emergency code 101.”

“Received,” said the BBC voice crisply, and the next moment, a familiar voice came on the line. “Well, well, well, _Gule Gardiner_ ,” it said mockingly, referring to Yousef’s nickname for Even’s smoke-and-mirrors mission to infiltrate the Nazi spy world. “We thought we’d never hear from you.”

Even knew that the channel they were using was scrambled – that is, transmitted in a form that was unintelligible to any Nazi radio controllers listening in – but he was still in great danger if any radiographers noticed a transmission being sent out to an unidentified source from the very heart of their Oslo base. He had little choice however, wounded as he was, but to send out a SOS and request immediate extraction from his London handler as quickly as possible.

“Sana,” said Even desperately. “Where’s Yousef?”

“Called back home. Turkey is being threatened by Hitler to stop being neutral and collaborate with him,” said Sana. “I’m going to be your handler while he’s gone.”

“Okay,” said Even heavily. “Well I hope he’s going to be all right.”

“Me too,” snapped Sana. “What’s up, Gule Gardiner? You’ve only got a few minutes.”

Even quickly filled Sana in with his recruitment by Willhelm into the spy world of the Nazis. “Listen, I’ve been given a mission, but it’s a suicide mission, Sana, you have to get me out. I’ve been told to capture this guy called Valtersen, from the Resistance, one of their chief bomb-makers - ”

There was a brief second of silence, before Sana spoke. “ _Valtersen_? You don’t mean the molecular chemistry boffin who could have been nominated for the Nobel prize if Norway hadn’t been invaded? _That_ Valtersen?”

Even shook his head, stunned. Nobel prize? Who the hell even _was_ this guy?

“I don’t know, Sana, but _listen,_ I’ve been wounded, and they’ve asked me to capture him, but it’s _not possible_ , I – ”

“Capture him,” Sana said sternly. “But deliver him to us, not Willhelm.”

“What?” asked Even incredulously. What would the Allies need with a scrappy young Resistance fighter, even a Nobel-prize-worthy chemistry student that could blow up an SS villa and take out its main men single-handedly. “But why?”

Sana broke in over him. “You don’t _know_? Back in UiO Valtersen was researching molecular chemistry, and in particular, this new field of _atomic fission_. Have you heard of that?”

“Uh, no,” said Even, slightly lost. “Art history was more my major.”

Sana sniffed. “Well, _atoms_ are the tiny, _tiny_ building blocks of which everything is made – we’re all made of atoms – and atomic _fission_ is the chain-reaction that happens when you wrench certain atoms apart to release the energy stored inside them. I’m talking about harnessing the power of the universe here, Even. Splitting the atoms of certain metals such as uranium will unleash an explosion that can rock _the entire world_.”

“Wow,” said Even, somewhat adrift in the physics of it all, but following sufficiently to realise that this was a _big fucking deal._

“Wow indeed,” said Sana sarcastically. “And if this method of atomic fission is used to create a bomb, then such a bomb would be so powerful that it could take out entire cities, entire peoples, _entire countries_. Do you realise the power that Valtersen has?”

“Oh my God,” said Even, feeling slightly dizzy, “but he doesn’t have any of this atomic fission now, or whatever you call it, he’s on the run using fucking drain cleaner.”

Sana laughed harshly. “But if Valtersen’s captured, the Nazis can use his knowledge to create a super-bomb, the like of which we have never seen before. Whoever gets that knowledge and builds that bomb, wins the war.”

“Oh shit,” breathed Even, as the precise enormity of the mission dawned upon him.  

“Believe me,” said Sana, her voice breaking, “we’re up against the clock here. The Germans have always been top of the field in atomic fission and now the Nazis are determined to create the first atomic bomb. The Russians are also working on their own version. The Americans and the British are collaborating to produce an A-bomb, but time is tight. We need someone of Valtersen’s calibre to help. With his knowledge, we can build that bomb first, and stop this terrible war.”

Even crouched motionless, feeling his security ebbing away, minute by minute. “But if I don’t deliver Valtersen to Willhelm, I’m dead in a week.”

Sana laughed mirthlessly. “That’s fine, as long as you deliver Valtersen to us before you die.”

“Sana, I don’t think you understand,” said Even desperately. “I’m dead if I find Valtersen, and I’m dead if I don’t. _You have to get me out_ , Sana, you _have_ to -”

“Even,” said Sana flatly. “This is war. You can’t just run away from your mission. This is a mission that King Haakon himself has requested, and thousands – no, millions – of people depend on you. Do you know how many innocent people across the world could be burned alive if the Nazis manage to create the atomic bomb first? How many countries could be decimated? How many oceans poisoned, how many children born into lifelong disfigurement and suffering? You _have_ to find Valtersen, Even. You _have_ to!”

Even was shaking all over, drops of sweat breaking out over his forehead. He had a real fever now. The new information he’d been given whirled around his brain confusingly. Valtersen had knowledge that could create the most powerful bomb ever – _literally ever_. Willhelm obviously knew this, but he’d purposefully withheld this information from Even, which meant that he himself wasn’t fully trusted. And now his London handlers expected him to calmly deliver Valtersen over to _them_ , leaving himself in dreadful danger.

“Are you going to back away from your mission?” asked Sana. “Because if you don’t find Valtersen soon, _they will_. And once they have him, it’s all over. All of us.”

Even swallowed, biting his lip. Fear consumed him. He was walking into certain death, he knew that. Either he died, or Valtersen died, but one of them was not going to survive this. 

Sana’s voice was icy. “Let me hear you say it, Agent 2121. Are you going to fulfil your King’s orders? Or will you betray your country, and your King?”

Even was shaking so much he could barely speak. “I will accept the mission,” he finally managed to stutter out between frozen lips. “I will deliver you Isak Valtersen.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In August 1945, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs (named “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” respectively) on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed at least 129,000 people at a stroke and effectively ended World War II (up to 220,000 people were dead of radiation poisoning within two months). Owing to the successful Allied invasion of France earlier that year, the atomic bomb was never directly used against Hitler.
> 
> Although Einstein had supported the creation of the atomic bomb, five months before his death he wrote: "I made one great mistake in my life... when I recommended to President Roosevelt that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification - the danger that the Germans would make them first."
> 
>  The American "father of the atomic bomb" Robert Oppenheimer was interviewed on TV in the 60's about his thoughts upon watching his prototype atomic bomb “Trinity” explode in a controlled detonation in a desert in New Mexico:
> 
> “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”
> 
> According to his brother, at the time Oppenheimer simply exclaimed, "It worked."
> 
> Another American physicist found Oppenheimer’s attitude distasteful: "I'll never forget his walk; I'll never forget the way he stepped out of the car ... his walk was like High Noon ... this kind of strut. He had done it…” Onstage that evening, Oppenheimer clasped his hands together "like a prize-winning boxer" while the crowd cheered.
> 
> However, Oppenheimer and many of the project staff were very upset about the bombing of Nagasaki after Hiroshima, as they did not feel the second bomb and such extensive loss of life was necessary from a military point of view. At an audience with President Harry Truman in October 1945, Oppenheimer remarked that he felt, “I have blood on my hands,” to which Truman responded to an aide, “I never want to see that son of a bitch here in my office again.”


	8. Three's A Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which EVAK FINALLY MEET! YESSSSSS!!!!
> 
> (It’s been a while since I updated so here’s an HBO style recap: It’s World War Two in occupied Norway. Even’s a secret double-agent acting for the British but posing as a Nazi collaborator. He has been asked by the Nazis to capture Resistance bomb-maker Isak Valtersen, while Sana, acting for the British, has asked him to deliver Isak to her instead. Meanwhile, Isak’s just blown up the Nazi General Wolf of Brandenburg at a Nazi orgy whilst posing as a rent boy, before being rescued by his friends and taken back to their secret hideout.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a bit of research to do for this chapter so sorry for the wait.
> 
> At the beginning of WW2, there were over 2,000 Jewish people in Norway. After invading Norway in 1940, the Nazis arrested, imprisoned and confiscated property belonging to Jews throughout 1941, and forced them to register, often in ghettos in the cities. Two thirds of Jews fled, of which 900 were smuggled out by the Norwegian Resistance to Sweden or Britain. 
> 
> Deportations to camps did not start until the fall of 1942 when the Nazi’s “Final Solution” – a plan to deliberately exterminate all those people who they thought were “inferior” in the gas ovens – was finalised. Around 776 Jews – comprising 230 complete households of men, women and children – were deported from Norway and murdered in the camps. Horrifically, only around 30 captured Norwegian Jews survived the war. Yes that’s right – 30.  
> 25 of them returned to Norway after the war. 
> 
> (Data from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Norway section. There is a small Jewish museum in Oslo which tells the stories of some of those taken)

It wasn’t until three days after he’d assassinated thirteen high-ranking Nazis at an orgy whilst almost blowing himself up in the process that Isak felt well enough to open his eyes. There were arms around him, soft gentle arms, stroking his hair, dabbing his face with a cool cloth, tipping a bowl of water to his parched lips. At first he thought it was Jonas, and rolled his face to the side to try to breathe in some of that addictive Jonas-smell, but the embrace that held him was undoubtedly feminine. He looked up in confusion to see Eva sitting above him holding a bowl and sponge, her grey eyes gazing at him tenderly.

“Hey, beautiful,” she said softly. “Remember me?”

“Oh my God, Eva!” Isak stretched his arms out and they embraced. “How did you get here!”

“Jonas brought me, the day after you blew up the Wolf,” whispered Eva.

Eva was terribly thin from a year spent living under stress and pressure in the Jewish quarter, her hair streaked with dirt and her face smudged, but her face lit up like a beacon at the sight of Isak. They had not seen each other since the invasion when Eva, along with the other seven hundred Jews left in Norway, had been separated and registered. Isak himself had only strength enough to smile in relief at the sight of his old schoolfriend, as their hands clasped together and Eva snuggled closer to him for a hug.

“I owe it all to you, Isak. I wouldn’t have lasted another day,” said Eva breathlessly. “They were already starting to order people into the square, and line them up.”

Isak’s heart dropped at the thought. “It’s okay, Eva …” he started but Eva’s eyes were red. “My block was the next one to be searched. If it hadn’t been for you blowing up the Wolf and all his merry men, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Isak glanced away, willing himself not to cry. “Really, Eva. Don’t mention it.”

Eva sighed, dropping her head, rubbing the back of her hand against her eyes. “You don’t know what you saved me from, Isak. You don’t know what they were going to do.”

Isak squirmed uncomfortably, he had a pretty good idea, but Eva continued:

“I watched it all from my window, Isak. All afternoon they had been forcing people down into the square to stand in long lines for the trains. There were old people, grandmothers and grandfathers, there were little boys and girls, toddlers, babies carried by their mothers and fathers. They all wore these.”

Eva held out a yellow star in disgust, ripping it into pieces as Isak looked. “Then the trains came in, Isak. They came in – they were more like cattle trucks, they had no windows, they had no doors, they were wrenched open and crowbarred shut. And the people started screaming as they were forced into the trains, and if they refused or tried to run away they were beaten unconscious and stuffed inside, to be trampled by the others. They had no food or water, they would travel hundreds of miles in terror and suffering towards …. Those screams, Isak. I could hear all of them, Isak, I can still hear them ….”

Isak pulled Eva close to him and held her close.

“It’s okay,” he muttered softly into her hair. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

 The trapdoor scraped above them, and Isak jumped anxiously, but Eva soothed him. “It’s okay, Isak, it’s just Jonas. He went out to get the guys.”

“The guys?” asked Isak, surprised, but the next moment there was a whispering of voices and Magnus, Vilde, Jonas and Noora suddenly swung themselves down into the dug-out. There was barely enough room for everyone to move in the tiny space but the joy was unmistakeable.

“Oh my God! Eva! Isak!”

They were all around them, hugging and kissing, exclaiming over Eva’s starved appearance and Isak’s bruised face. Magnus threw his arms around Isak in a crushing hug. “Fuck, man. I’m so sorry about sending you on that mission. I thought you weren’t going to get out alive.”

“Jonas was _furious_ ,” said Vilde, her eyes round.

“I _was_ fucking furious,” confirmed Jonas. “That’s never gonna happen again, Issy, hear me.”

Magnus and Vilde stumbled over each other relaying the story. “He found out you’d gone to the barracks about an hour after you’d left –”

“ – And then Vilde discovered it wasn’t just the Wolf, it was a whole fucking SS _orgy_ –”

“ – We knew you wouldn’t be a match for all of them, Issy, but we didn’t know, we’re so sorry –”

“ – So he insisted we get a van and wait outside –”

“Just as well you did,” Isak forces a small smile, “otherwise I _wouldn’t_ have made it out alive.”

“ _I_ wouldn’t have made it out alive either,” said Eva in a small voice, and Noora threw her arms around her.

“Don’t think about all that. You’re here. That’s the main thing.”

Vilde and Noora fussed over Eva, brushing out her tangles and cleaning her face. They’d brought a change of clothes for her, and then Vilde brought out her compact and made her up, putting on powder, lipstick and darkening her eyelashes. When she’d finished, Eva looked almost as she had done a year ago, although she was much thinner and there was a look in her eyes that had never been there before.

“Wow,” said Jonas, sitting down beside her. “That’s my girl.”

Despite himself, Isak felt jealousy curling in his stomach, and looked away.

“I’ve brought some party provisions,” says Magnus, opening a large sack. “I thought fuck it, we’ve probably only got one chance to party right now.”

Magnus had certainly excelled himself with his black market business; he’d brought a large smoked ham, cold potato salad, a few loaves of bread and a bottle of wine. In those famished times, such a banquet was unthinkable, and they all fell to eating, sitting cross-legged and squashed against each other like a strange underground picnic. Despite his weakened state, Isak sat up to eat something, and for an hour or so it was almost like old times; Magnus clowning and Jonas tearing him down, Vilde chattering nonsense, Eva laughing and Noora sitting watching her with a blissful smile on her face.

“Have some ham,” said Magnus, munching, and Eva shook her head. “I’m Jewish, remember?”

“Oh shit, sorry, right,” Magnus pushed over the potato salad. “Have this instead. Can Jews eat potatoes? I’ve no idea.”

“Fuck it,” Eva carved herself a large slice of the ham and gobbled it up. “I’m starving.”

“You sure? I don’t want you to go to hell,” said Magnus, jokingly, but Eva sneered. “Hell? Hell is what we’re living in right now. You think if there was a God that He’d let all this happen? If there was a God, He’d have stepped in when the first children got sent to the camps. So I don’t think me eating a stupid piece of ham is going to make any fucking difference.”

An uncomfortable silence rolled through the room, broken only by Magnus farting and Vilde hitting him reprovingly.

“So where will you go now?” asked Isak to break the tension as he nibbled the last of the ham bones. He felt much restored now he’d eaten something, he’d stopped aching so much and he almost felt himself again.

 “Eva is going to stay here,” said Jonas, calmly. “With us.”

“Here?” Isak couldn’t help but feel a momentary dip of dismay. The secret underground cellar was already barely big enough for two, let alone three.

Eva picked up his mood and turned appealingly to Jonas. “Maybe – maybe I should stay somewhere else. I don’t want to put you guys in danger.”

“We’re already in danger,” said Jonas sarcastically, biting savagely at his crust of bread. “We’re living in a fucking bomb factory for God’s sake. I don’t think you being here will make things any worse. And what other choice do you have? There’s nowhere safe in Oslo, and you’ve left it too late for us to get you out of Norway.”

“I haven’t left it too late, you idiot!” stormed Eva. “Because I never wanted to leave. I would never leave _you_!”

“Oh my goodness,” said Noora. “Please. We mustn’t argue. We’re all under pressure, but we mustn’t turn on each other. If we do that, they’ve already won.”

 

*** 

 

The party broke up in a subdued mood, but when they kissed each other goodbye they clung to each other as if it were the last time. Indeed it could be their last time, for no one knew when they would see each other again. Magnus left them some nuts and apples, and Isak watched from the shadows as he and the girls melted into the night. But there were no sounds of ambush, and tiredly he clambered back down into the dug-out and bolted the trapdoor from below.

Eva and Jonas had made their double bed up where Isak used to sleep, and there was only a small space left for him under the table where he made the bombs. He rolled himself up and was so tired that he passed out almost immediately.

He woke up to the noise of grunts and gasps, and almost immediately pulled his blanket over his head in shock and embarrassment. They were making love, he realised, and this was _worse_ , ten _times_ worse than having Jonas coming back smelling of Eva, this time he could actually _smell_ Eva, smell her and smell Jonas too, smell the hot scent of his sweat and hear him thrusting hard into her, hear his breath catching in his throat and the slap-slap of flesh on flesh only inches away.

 _Oh God,_ he thought to himself. _It’s not enough that the man I love loves someone else, but now I have to hear them,_ but at that moment he heard Jonas cry out, muffled, a glad shout of relief and desire mixed, and he screwed his face up to try and get rid of the sound. Seconds later, guilt overtook him.

 _They nearly lost each other_ , he thinks, _I haven’t lost either of them._

_I have no one to lose._

 

***

 

The next night was the same, and the night after that.

During the day things were actually better, while Isak made bombs, Eva would tidy up and find new ways to cook the meagre provisions that they had. Jonas would go off with the small reactors that Isak made, and while he was gone it was actually _nice_ to have someone to talk to, to catch up on everything that had happened and to reminisce over old times. It also took both their minds off their ever-present worry – what would happen to them if Jonas was ever captured?

But the nights were bad. Eva and Jonas, justifiably treating each night as if it could be their last, held nothing back. Isak once opened his sleep-smeared eyes at midnight to the sight of Eva mouthing over Jonas’s cock, and one morning was woken by Eva’s high-pitched groans as Jonas pleasured her.

“Sorry, man,” said Jonas afterwards apologetically, “but life is short, you know?”

Isak _did_ know. Life _was_ short, and here he was, wasting his own life, trapped in a tiny dug-out with no one to love him, no one to hold him, no one to share his troubles at the end of the day. He said as much to Noora when she sneaked in to visit Eva the next day. Eva had gone upstairs to empty out the toilet-bucket, and Isak seized his chance.

“It’s not that I don’t love them both, Noora, but it’s hard living with – a couple. There’s no privacy, and it’s driving me mad.”

Noora put her arm around him and stroked his hair. “I know, Issy. Jonas – he just wants you to be safe.”

“I’m going to be safe and insane at this rate,” said Isak crabbily and Noora looked at him with large, sympathetic eyes. “I understand. You need to have a break. It’s enough to drive anybody crazy.”

“Yeah, but where can I go?” Isak rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’ve got the whole of Norway looking for me.”

Eva climbed down into the dug-out with the cleaned-out toilet bucket, taking in the situation at a glance.

“The war won’t last forever, you know,” she said reassuringly. “We’ll be free one day. We just have to hang on.”

Isak turned and faced Eva, tears starting to his eyes. “Freedom, you say? Maybe for you, if this war ever finishes. But what will there be for people like me?”

Eva gazed at him, surprised. “People like you?”

“Fags. Homosexuals,” blazed Isak. “What freedom will I get after the war? None! If I live my life as I want to, I can be imprisoned, sent to a hard labour camp, lose my home, lose my friends. Okay, university was different, nobody really cared there, but all that’s been swept away now. You talk of freedom, but it’s a freedom that I’ll never have.”

Tears poured down his cheeks and he buried his face in his hands. But the next moment Eva was next to him, putting her arms, holding him closely. “Sorry, Isak,” she whispered. “I know you’re frightened. But one thing you never need to fear. You’ll never lose your friends.”

“I’ve started singing at a new club,” said Noora, lighting a thoughtful cigarette. “It’s a – tolerant club, it’s not really for homosexuals, but plenty of guys come there to kiss, and dance and stuff, and it’s very private. You should come there one evening, get some time for yourself. It’s called the Rainbow Club.”

She held out a small pink business card – the type that people often used to use before the war – and Isak took note of the address; it was near a café he used to visit on the upper east side, and he thought he could find it easily enough.

“Whistle three times outside the entrance. It looks boarded up and shut but there’ll be someone watching. Then go round the back to the alley, and they’ll open up for you. There’s no entry charge, but you’ll be expected to drink their bootleg beer.” She dropped a few coins in his palm. “Any evening you need. I’ll be there.”

 

***

 

That time came earlier than he’d imagined.

He was woken up around midnight by Jonas’s heavy grunts. He muffled his ears and tried to get back to sleep, but Jonas was taking _ages_ to come, his gasps of caveman desire echoing round the dug-out in maddening intensity. The air was full of the scent of sex and Jonas’s mustiness and Eva’s perfume. Jonas grunted on, and on, _and on_ , and Isak could take it no more.

 _I can’t bear this_ , said a small voice in his head. _I need to get out. Now._

Before he could stop himself he was throwing the blanket off him, shoving on his boots, trampling across their bed and Jonas’s naked buttocks, unbolting the trapdoor and dragging himself through it.

“Isak! Wait! Stop!” hissed Jonas frantically from behind him, but Isak was already gone.

 

The night air was fresh against his cheeks, and his tears dried as soon as he started to run. He had grabbed an old camel-coloured coat of Jonas’s on his way out, and inside he found a blue woollen and a pair of see-through horn-rimmed glasses, Jonas’s go-to disguise for the outside. As he dodged out the bombed-out ruins and entered the battered streets of Oslo’s east side, he forced himself to walk normally. _You’re just on a night out_ , he told himself. _Don’t act suspicious_.

Although there was a nominal curfew operating at night in Oslo, unless you tried to cross one of the important road-blocks near the barracks, the port or the SAPO headquarters, the Nazis largely left pedestrians in the outer districts alone. This comforting thought stayed with him until he saw the first flapping poster taped to the outside of a door; his university photograph and a hand-drawing of himself with his short hair with the caption:

WANTED. ISAK VALTERSEN, TERRORIST

AKA "THE DARK ANGEL"

REWARD: 1,000kr

For a moment he was almost frightened enough to go home, but then he remembered Jonas’s body crushing against Eva’s, and shook himself. There was no way he was going back to _that._

Rebelliously he pulled the hat further down on his head, adjusted the horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and walked on.

The club was on an unlit street near the warehouse district, and it really did look deserted. As Noora had instructed, Isak stood outside and whistled three times. Nothing and no one moved, so he walked around the alley to the back and stood patiently. After a minute he was beginning to think that no one was there, before a small scrape echoed down the alley and a hatch in the door was pulled back.

“Password?” a voice demanded suspiciously.

“Password?” Isak racked his brains, but he couldn’t think of anything Noora had said about passwords. “Sorry I don’t have a password. I’m here because – my friend Noora – “

There was a short exclamation from the other side of the door. “Oh my God! Isak?”

Isak squinted through the small hole in the hatch. “Shit. No. Mahdi fucking Disu! What are you doing here?”

“I run this fucking place!” Mahdi pulled open the door and dragged him inside. “Jesus Christ man, Noora said you might be coming over but I didn’t believe her. You’re famous, man! All of Oslo is talking about you!”

Mahdi had been the bartender at the University of Oslo. Isak remembered him well, waiting on tables and letting them have free shots after hours. Mahdi’s father had been a well-known jazz trumpeter, but Isak had assumed, since the Nazis had taken over, that they had either left or been deported, as the Nazis considered people of different colours and faiths inferior.

Isak shook his head in bewilderment. “I thought you’d left Oslo, man.” He wasn’t sure how to put this delicately. “I thought the Nazis would be making life difficult for you.”

“You think?” Mardi grinned cheerfully at him. “My old pop is the best jazz trumpeter in the business my man, and even Nazis need a bit of Louis Armstrong and Count Basie on their time off.”

“Do Nazis come here?” asked Isak, suddenly fearful, but Mahdi shook his head. “No man, this one’s for Norwegians only. Too far out for most soldiers anyway. But me and Magnus run the underground clubs in downtown Oslo, most of which _do_ serve the SS and the Gestapo, and that’s the reason they keep us alive, I guess. If our clubs closed down, all the Nazi soldiers would be rioting in an instant.”

“Wow,” said Isak. He didn’t judge Mahdi, or Magnus either in providing services to the Nazis. Most people had to, in some way, it didn’t mean they liked it. Magnus sold them meat and bread, Vilde sold them sex, and now here was Mahdi selling them jazz. They were all just doing what they had to do to keep alive, and in the process they extracted every bit of useful information to help the rebels any way they could. “It’s a different world now.”

“It’s another world indeed.” Mahdi put his arm around him and pulled him down the corridor. “Come and try some of my best bootleg brandy.”

 

***

 

Down in the cellar, the lights were dim – so dim that they were practically non-existent. A table covered with jars of bootleg alcohol stood at one end, and a small stage made of boxes had been set up at the other, with a microphone and a piano. Smoke filled the air from numerous cigarettes, and the clientele sat squeezed up around small tables made from barrels. Down one side ran some booths with curtains, where people could sit and talk in privacy.

“Wrap yourself around this,” Mahdi handed him a large jam jar of something dark and bubbling. Isak sniffed at it dubiously and Mahdi laughed. “Pace yourself, man, you’ll get drunk too soon. Noora’s told me to find you a nice dark corner, so sit at the back and relax, why don’t you. Band’s on in a minute.”

The band struck up right on cue, and Isak watched Noora mount the stage. She was dressed in a tight, black fishtailed dress and a fluffy boa. The band were composed of a saxaphone, a couple of jazz trumpets and the pianist, and Mahdi was right; they really were pretty good, playing the well-known Duke Ellington classic as Noora sang:

_It don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing –_

_Makes no difference if it’s sweet or hot –_

_Just give that rhythm every little thing you got –_

Isak hadn’t really heard live jazz before, he’d never been one for going out much – preferring to stay in the university lab and watch molecules collide, as Jonas put it – but as the dancefloor filled up the sight of people dancing made him feel alive again. The music changed, and Noora sang Billy Strayhorn’s _Lush Life_.

_I used to visit all the very gay places_

_Those come what may places_

_Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life_

_To get the feel of life_

_From jazz and cocktails_

Nobody really glanced in his direction, and he began to relax. Noora had been right, it was a tolerant bar, a couple of guys were sitting holding hands at one table, and amongst the dancing couples Isak could spot a couple of guys and a couple of girls. Girls dancing together wasn’t an uncommon sight in wartime since so many men had been called up and killed – but these girls were kissing and holding each other and didn’t look as if they missed them.

The band burst into the opening chords of the Duke Ellington hit, _Take the “A” Train,_ and a gust of cold air passed over him as someone entered through the cellar door close to him. Isak glanced up casually, looked away, then immediately looked back.

A young man was standing there outlined in the dirty glow of a lantern, a slender figure a couple of years older than himself, blond floppy hair falling down over his face which he brushed aside with a large gentle hand. He looked like some kind of farm boy in a patched jacket and workman’s cap, but he’d obviously been wounded, he was leaning on a stick and limping slightly. As he scanned the crowd, Isak saw him look over towards his table.

Isak jumped as their eyes met – he didn’t know why – and he saw a look of something like shock – or was it interest? – flash over the man’s face. In that instant the man took off his cap and pushed back his hair again as if to see better. In the dim light he saw a face with blue eyes, cheekbones as delicate as a girl’s, and a full mouth that was far prettier than any he had ever seen before.

_Come on, come on, come on, take the A train_

_Hurry, get on board it’s comin’_

_Listen to those rails a-thrummin’_

He looked away, blood flaming through his cheeks, and then unwillingly looked back, as if an invisible string was drawing him. The man was still looking at him, an unreadable expression on his face.

_All aboard! Get on the A train_

_Soon you’ll be in Sugar Hill -_

Isak knew he shouldn’t be staring, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been trapped underground with only the same faces for company for months, and now, right in front of him was a man whose beauty would have made him turn his head even in peacetime.

 _Wow,_ he thought involuntarily. _This club does get some hot men here_ , closely followed by, _Oh shit, he’s coming over._

“Mind if I sit here?”

The man’s voice was deep and low, with a Tromso accent. He smiled at Isak, shyly and hesitantly, but the small expression was enough to illuminate his face like the sun. Isak felt his heart suddenly bang up and down between his ribs like a ricocheting ball. He glanced around hurriedly, but Mahdi was nowhere to be seen, and Noora was singing blissfully with her eyes closed.

“Sure,” he stammered out, and made space for him.

The man sat down carefully, his injured leg stretched out before him. Isak admired the graceful way he moved, despite his injury –  and offered Isak his hand.

“My name’s Henrik.”

Isak swallowed. For a moment as their fingers touched it appeared he had forgotten the power of speech, and indeed his cover name.

“My name is Isa – er, sorry, I mean Tarjei.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO THEY’VE MET!!! I’ve been wanting to write this for SO long!  
> And introducing themselves with their cover names of Henrik and Tarjei, lmao
> 
> 1) I know nothing about jazz, but Duke Ellington’s Take The “A” train is pretty famous – you may recognise it from films or TV – I only just realised that there could be a double meaning for “take the A train”, apologies if too much, I’m just gonna leave that here …
> 
> 2) I apologise if Eva’s story about the Jewish deportations is upsetting. The truth is that the Final Solution WAS upsetting, it was the most horrific and evil plan in history, and many millions of people died as a result so it’s really not something that you can make light of. I mention it here to keep the stakes high, because I want to honour the bravery of all those who lived under Nazi rule, show the real danger under which they’re living and not turn this into some kind of James Bond fic (I’ll do that elsewhere, ahaha).


	9. Cheek to Cheek (I'm In Heaven)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Isak and Even dance together at the club ... only to be cockblocked by a police raid ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So while we're all waiting for the Interview mag pictures to drop ... something to read ... I know nothing about jazz, especially Norwegian jazz! But I kind of liked the idea of Evak meeting at a secret underground jazz club … and when I discovered that some jazz musicians were also involved in the Resistance I thought it too good not to incorporate! Try playing Cheek To Cheek (I’m In Heaven) if you fancy a little background music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdS5uRgu_TA and there’s more notes at the end of the chapter.
> 
> “Black markets” – ie smuggled food, drink and other items – are rife in wartime countries, as it is often the only way that people can get supplies. A whole underground economy existed in both occupied and unoccupied countries during WW2. It was technically against the law, but all levels of police and government were involved in it at some level, whether it would be Willhelm’s American cigarettes, bootleg (home-made) alcohol in pop-up clubs like Mahdi’s, or fresh meat and vegetables like those sold by Magnus.

Even blinked as he looked around the darkened jazz club. He winced in pain as his injured leg protested from the long hike to the East Side, exhausted from a week spent scouring the underground dives of Oslo, and he’d almost given it up for another day.  

Jazz had been big in Norway since the first black American band toured in 1921, and Even was a big fan. His creative brain appreciated all the twisting intricate riffs and free-styling melodies, though his parents hadn’t liked jazz, they were strongly religious and enjoyed the Norwegian choirs. Even’s fondest memories had been of discovering the various jazz clubs while he was at university. For a while, everything new and hip and exciting had been called _jazz._

He took a deep breath as he scanned the crowd, trying not to let his surprise show. Guys were dancing with guys, and girls were dancing with girls, arms wrapped round each other, hips grinding together, lips on lips. Up on a stage a blonde jazz singer bent over the microphone in a haze of smoke, a slash of red mouth visible as she sang the

Even glanced sharply at the singer: yes that was Noora Saertre all right.

He had tailed Magnus for a while “following the food chain” as Christoffer had put it – but the man was just too clever, using a variety of vans and cars to throw pursuers off his tail. But, Even had reasoned, Valtersen couldn’t have been involved in an explosion that huge and not been injured, so it would be a few days before he was able to move around, if at all. And with his picture on every lamp post in Oslo, Valtersen would be lying low, and maybe only going out at night. Even had just been about to abandon the search when he’d heard some talk that Noora Saertre would be singing over at a new jazz club called the Rainbow over on the East side. And - more importantly - Magnus Fossbakken would be guesting on piano. 

The band struck up into the high-kicking big-band opening of _Take The “A” Train,_ and Even looked for a dark corner where he could sit unobserved.

And it was then that he saw the man he had been searching for a week calmly sitting at a table.

_Valtersen._

Even could have been knocked down with a feather.

His quick brain had only a few seconds to assess the situation. Valtersen was wearing a cap and an idiotic pair of spectacles but Even had studied the photograph and the ID picture from the bombing in minute detail and recognised him in an instant. For a moment he felt a surge of incredulity – this kid had _no idea_ about disguise – the next was the pure sensation of relief.

He had found his target. _Finally._

Valtersen saw him looking in the same instant, before turning his head away shyly. Even stared at him, confused. Here was the boy whom the secret services of two countries were looking for, the boy who held the secrets of the atoms in his head, the boy who had the power to destroy nations … _this_ boy, who looked so small and slight, cradling a jar of home-brew awkwardly in his thin hand, looking as if he really wouldn’t be able to hurt a fly. From his old photo and his reputation, Even had thought Valtersen would be tall, swaggering and arrogant. He hadn’t expected him to look so small, so delicate, so _nervous_.

For a moment, he felt nervous himself. _Come on,_ he told himself sternly. S _top gawping. Go over there and talk to him!_

Seizing his chance, he made his way over to the table, trying not to show the pain in his thigh from where Christoffer had shot him. Valtersen looked quickly up at him, gosh, despite his horrible haircut he was still beautiful – and blushed, before looking away. When they shook hands, Valtersen almost gave his real name before correcting himself to _Tarjei_ quickly – really, he was _very bad_ at this spying thing, thought Even, surprisedly – but Even’s attempts to draw conversation withered and died like flaming arrows.

“You like jazz?” he asked with a smile. Valtersen flinched. “Not really,” and turned back to watch the band.

“I’ve been a fan for years,” pursued Even. “I loved Svein Arne Øvergaard and the Funny Boys band. Remember him?”

It was a question with a hidden meaning. Norway had produced their own legendary drummer Svein Arne Øvergaard and the Funny Boys who became internationally famous during the Thirties. Øvergaard had himself been a member of the Norwegian Resistance, but had recently fled to London. Any resistance members would pick up the reference.

“No. I don’t think so,” said Valtersen abruptly. “Before my time.”

Even bit back a smile. Really, despite his looks, Valtersen was horribly shy and socially _terrible_. He tried a few more conversational topics but it was useless: Valtersen would smile nervously if spoken to, but even when replying it was hard to hear him over the noise of the band. Even fought the wish that made him want to lean closer and closer and feel his breath on his cheek.

He pondered his options, and they looked bleak. If he fulfilled his mission and delivered Valtersen to Sana and the Allies, he would be left in Norway, which meant certain death from a vengeful Willhelm. Yet Even could not deliver Valtersen to Christoffer despite the chance that by doing so he could save himself. If Valtersen really was genius enough to know about nuclear fission – then it meant that the Nazis would create the first weapon of mass destruction.

Yet the clock was ticking, and all the while, over himself and Christoffer, hung the constant risk of discovery like an ever-present cloud.

The only way that he could see, was to persuade Sana to let him leave _with_ Valtersen. Or – to force her hand with threats now he had him.

 _The British want Valtersen alive_ , he thought grimly. _So they are going to pay for the privilege._

He was saved from his morbid thoughts by a sudden cheer from the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your guest pianist for tonight – Mr. Magnus Fossbakken!” called Noora from the stage, hand outstretched, and the crowd cheered as Magnus bounded into the club and sent a swooping trill of notes up the piano with the back of his hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a special treat for you tonight!” announced Magnus. “The one and only Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald for you –“

Laughter from the crowd. Magnus grinned, enjoying the performance.

“Oh hang on, I’m getting called.” He picked an imaginary telephone out of his pocket. “Hello? Is that Louis and Ella? Where are you guys, you’re on in a minute! What? There’s a _war_ on –?”

Laughter and applause. Magnus shrugged, hanging up the imaginary phone.

“ – I’m sorry guys, bad news, apparently there’s a war going on so they’re not gonna make it. So we’re standing in for them but don’t worry, we’ll be even better! Get on the dance floor everyone, because the lovely Noora Saertre and I will perform for you – Irving Berlin’s smash hit _Cheek to Cheek_!”

Even couldn’t help chuckling. Fossbakken was a born comic, able to play the audience just as he wanted them.

 _But you couldn’t play me_ , he thought darkly to himself. _You led me right to him in the end_.

“Do you – do you want to dance?”

He looked over in surprise. Valtersen was leaning towards him apprehensively, large eyes fixed on his face. Even could see that the irises were green with gold flecks dancing in them, like a wooded pool, he thought, or a shallow sunlit sea. For a long moment he was unable to reply.

“I’m afraid, no, my leg,” he finally indicated his wounded thigh.

“Oh.” Valtersen sat hurriedly back and wrapped his arms around himself bashfully, as if he had been slapped. Even cursed himself. It had obviously taken the boy a lot to pluck up the courage to ask him, and here he was turning the opportunity down.

 _Why am I talking myself out of this_ , he asked himself. _Isn’t this what’s needed? Earn his trust, get him out of here?_

“No, wait. If you don’t mind me – leaning on you, I think we can make it work.” He smiled, and Valtersen seemed to relax a little. “You’ll have to lead, though.”

He managed to make it to his feet without grimacing though the pain made him dizzy, and they found a spot on the dance floor. Valtersen was a few inches shorter than him, his nose on a level with his collarbone so he had to look up at Even through his long lashes. Even swallowed. Up on the stage, Noora was singing:

_Heaven, I'm in heaven_

_And the cares that hung around me through the week_

_Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak_

_When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek –_

They faced each other, unsure of how to start, before Even leaned his arm on Valtersen’s shoulder, and Valtersen brought his hands up to rest on Even’s hips. The jolt of electricity between them was unmistakeable. Even was unable to resist a momentary start and Valtersen flinched away. “Sorry,” he breathed.

_Come on and dance with me_

_I want my arms about you_

_Those charms about you_

_Will carry me through …_

Even’s heart rate had doubled in speed. “Do it again.” He gently took Valtersen’s hands – really they were so tiny in his – and put them back on his hips, leaning his arms on the younger man’s shoulders. He couldn’t help but curl a hand around the back of Valtersen’s neck, fingers stroking at the flesh, pulling gently at the cropped hair there.

Valtersen nestled into the contact with a sigh, leaning into him, his head dropping on Even’s neck, his warm breath against Even’s collarbone. Even’s hand dropped to his back to pull him close. For a moment the bodily reality of him was overwhelming. He swallowed, feeling the other’s slender figure mould itself against him, as he stroked his hands up and down Valtersen’s back. This was really – _really not_ what he’d expected.

“Is this OK?” asked Valtersen, his voice humming into Even’s chest and it was all Even could do to nod.

They started to dance – well, sway, really, as Even’s leg groaned beneath him with the pain, but having the delicate weight of Valtersen in his arms was making him think all kinds of thoughts. Not since Yousef’s friend Mikael had he felt – these kind of feelings, in such a rush, and in such abandon. All the blood that Even had in his body seemed to be going straight to his groin. He was finding it hard to think straight.

“How did it happen?” asked Valtersen in his ear, and it took a moment for Even to understand that he was asking about his leg.

“A Nazi shot me,” he replied truthfully, and Valtersen bristled slightly. “Bastards. I hate all of them.”

“Me too,” said Even, dropping his face down to brush against the top of Valtersen’s head. He smelled of dust and the night sky and behind it all – the slight marzipan-like tang of Semtex.

 _Focus_ , he thought to himself grimly, _this boy is deadly_. But at his touch, Valtersen groaned slightly and turned his head, his lips wandering over Even’s collarbone and his neck, plucking gently at the skin, sending off a ripple of shocks through Even’s whole body.

_What –_

Helplessly, Even cupped the back of Valtersen’s head in his hand and threaded his fingers through his hair. _Don’t stop, don’t stop._ The smaller boy moaned and opened his mouth wider, tonguing gently in the hollow of Even’s throat. Even gasped out loud, then sighed as he felt the soft drag of lips up his neck and the corresponding pricking of desire in his groin. He couldn’t help but rock his hips towards Valtersen, and received a soft thrust back in response.

 _Oh God, what’s happening_ , thought Even, all he was conscious of was Valtersen’s lips on his neck, tongue probing softly, licking up and down until he could bear it no longer. In response he pulled and tugged on the back of his hair making Valtersen moan; they’d stopped even dancing at this point, and just stood among the sea of dancing couples, engrossed in the touch of the other.

_Heaven, I'm in heaven_

_And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak_

_And I seem to find the happiness I seek_

_When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek_

“Don’t stop,” sighed Even into Valtersen’s ear, ignoring all the voices screaming in his brain. There would be time enough for them later. Right then – all they had – was now.

Valtersen hummed in response, and kissed Even’s neck deeply, longer and harder until he’d gathered a mouthful of flesh. He tightened his lips and began drawing on it. Even groaned, tilting his head back, letting Valtersen roam hungrily over his throat.

 _I’m weak_ , he thought confusedly to himself, _he’s making me weak_ , _he’s sucking the life out of me_ , but at that moment Valtersen released him and swirled his tongue over the bitten spots, blowing on and cooling them, laughing up at the dazed look on Even’s face. “How does that feel?”

“It feels – wonderful,” Even got out at last. “Can we – go somewhere?”

“Where?” asked Valtersen eagerly, but at that moment there was a sudden whistle and the lights were turned on blindingly bright.

“Police raid!” shouted someone, and instantly the doors behind the booths were thrown open. “Vans are coming up the road! Get your stuff and get out! Run east!”

Instantly all was organised chaos. Tables and chairs were whisked away, and with them the remaining jars of moonshine. A service hatch was opened in the back of the cellar to reveal a dark, dusty passage and the clientele, grabbing their coats and hats, surged through in a silent stream. The musicians packed up their instruments in an instant, and the piano was loaded onto a trolley. The proprietor threw the lanterns in a box and then tossed around some bricks and dust to give the impression of an unoccupied space. Even couldn’t help but marvel at their efficiency. It was plain that this was a regular event.

He became aware of Valtersen’s hand in his, snapping him back to reality. _Now_ was the time, _now_ was the moment he needed.

“Come with me,” he gasped, and Valtersen looked back at him, eyes wide and pupils blown dark. “Where?”

“Somewhere. Anywhere!” Even gasped out. Valtersen started to speak but at that moment the idiotic Fossbakken and the proprietor came steaming up. “Isak! We have to get you out of here now!” They hustled him away, looking at Even daggers. “Who are you, man? Get the fuck off him!”

Their hands clenched briefly, then dropped, Valtersen looking helplessly back at him over Magnus’s shoulder as he was dragged up the steps and into the tiny alley where they had come in. Even ran after them. In the dim light, he could see a parked wooden truck with a battered hand-painted sign saying THE BEST APPLES IN NORWAY.

“What’s happening?” gasped Valtersen – _Isak_ , thought Even dazedly, what a beautiful name for a beautiful boy – “what do I do?”

“Get in the fruit truck,” shouted Magnus, manhandling Valtersen – no, _Isak_ – into the back. “Keep your fucking head down!”

“Wait!” cried Even, agonised. “Get the fuck out of here, man, if you know what’s good for you,” shouted the proprietor, bolting the doors behind him.

“When can I see you again?” cried Even, despite himself, but Magnus shouldered him rudely aside, pushed up the trailer with a clatter and took off into the night. Even rubbed his arm, staring as the van faded into the darkness.

He’d lost him. Lost Valtersen, lost – _Isak_ , lost – his only chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once I started researching jazz, I was surprised to know how much of it I’d already heard in films and TV. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald are two of the best-known names of the jazz era, but Irving Berlin’s Cheek to Cheek and Duke Ellington’s Take The “A” Train are very often referenced in films and on TV. 
> 
> Although “gay” was not used in the sense it is today, Thirties songs sing about “having a gay time” – and black jazz musician Billy Strayhorn was actually a homosexual black jazz musician who often wrote the word “gay” in his songs. You can find them all on YouTube if you fancy some background music with your fic! 
> 
> Irving Berlin – Cheek To Cheek (I’m In Heaven) – Evak’s first dance music  
> Duke Ellington – Take the “A” train – Evak first see each other  
> Billy Strayhorn – Lush Life  
> Duke Ellington – It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)


	10. Can't Take That Away From Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Isak pines, and his friends meddle ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not much to note, apart from I thought I better update as I'm away this weekend! have a good one y'all!

Isak was lying down, blissfully drifting in a haze of sleep, hearing the song that had been playing inside his head rise to full volume.

_We may never never meet again_

_On the bumpy road to love_

_Still I’ll always, always keep the memory of –_

_The way you hold your glass_

_The way we dance til three_

_The way you changed my life_

_No, no, they can’t take that away from me_

_No, they can’t take that away from me._

He was being held – oh God, was this what it could feel like – _really_ held, strong arms around him holding him up, his face resting on Henrik’s chest as large fingers played with his hair and pulled at his nape. Part of him couldn’t really feel his legs any more, he was drifting, floating in a beautiful haze, Henrik’s body pressed against his. He turned his face so that it rested in the hollow of the other man’s neck, drinking in the scent of his skin and the warmth of his body. As he moved his lips over Henrik’s long throat, he could feel the vibration as he moaned, turning his neck to the side so Isak could probe underneath his jaw with his tongue, relishing the sweet-and-salty taste of his skin, opening his lips wide to suck the sweetness as hard as he could – 

“Isak, wake up you stupid tart!”

Jonas’s voice broke in on him and Isak opened his eyes. He was back in his old spot underneath the bomb-making table where he’d been since Magnus screeched to a halt outside the cellar in the early hours of the night before and thrown him out.

“You can’t sleep all day. We have to talk. What the fuck were you playing at last night?!”

“I’m – I’ll wait upstairs,” said Eva tactfully, climbing rapidly upstairs and closing the trapdoor after her.

Isak rubbed his eyes. “I can’t do it, Jonas. I can’t stay underground all the time. I’m not a fucking rabbit.”

His friend groaned and closed his eyes. “None of us are. You think it’s easy for me? Going out there every day, every day worrying that I’m going to be tailed, having all that responsibility to keep us hidden and not lead them back to the bomb factory? If they catch you they’ll _torture_ you, Issy, and they won’t stop until you tell them everything – where we are, who our agents are – and then we’ll _all_ be lost! I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time, but you’re putting us all in danger!”

Isak’s heart plummeted; he knew that every word Jonas said was true, but in his innermost heart he still rebelled. “I just wanted to go out. See people again. Have some fun. Feel – alive.”

Jonas shook his head. “And you walked straight into a police raid. If Magnus hadn’t been around to get you back – you and I would be having our fingernails drawn right now. Eva would be on a train to the camps and Noora and Magnus would be facing a firing squad. Think, Issy, think about it.”

Isak closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I really am. But you and Eva – you’ve got each other. Every day you have is a blessing. But I don’t have anyone. I’m _dying_ here, Jonas.”

And with his eyes shut he felt Henrik pressed close to him again, felt the soft tremor as he laughed, and the softness of his hands as they moved over his back.

 _I don’t want to die,_ he thought to himself. _I want to live._

“Then what can we do?” Jonas’s voice broke. “What can I do to make you stay?” There was a pause before Jonas drew nearer, his curls brushing Isak’s cheek. “Is it sex you want, Issy? Will that make you happy?”

It took a moment before Isak realised what Jonas was offering, and he choked. Before he would have replied with a panting _yes_ , but since his dance with Henrik something had changed within him, forever. He drew back from Jonas abruptly. Henrik’s touch had made all other caresses from men seem worthless.

“What good would that do? You _don’t_ want me in that way, and I –” his voice trembled slightly on the words, “I don’t want _you_.”

 _Come with me_ , breathed Henrik’s voice inside him.

_Where?_

_Somewhere. Anywhere._

“Sorry, that was stupid of me.” Jonas got up and walked away awkwardly. “This shit is driving me crazy too. Maybe we should find another place. Move out of Oslo. We’ll end up killing each other otherwise. I’ll get on it.”

Jonas left, and Isak looked up at his workbench, still littered with the ingredients of death: wire, switches, cables and chemicals. He felt his stomach turn: he couldn’t face doing _that_ ever again. Instead he rolled over, pulling the blanket over his head. Sleep was all he wanted, _sleep_ , because only then could he see the white flash of Henrik’s smile and feel the softness of his skin under his lips, hear the music playing as they danced cheek to cheek.

_Heaven, I’m in heaven -_

He was conscious of only one thing; he had to see Henrik _again_ , and he had to see him _soon_.

 

 ***

 

Noora visited the next day when Jonas was out. Eva sat awkwardly in the corner, Isak’s untouched dinner at her feet.

“He’s been like this ever since he got back. He won’t talk, he won’t eat, he won’t work.” Her voice trembled. “Jonas is hitting the roof. We’re shouting at each other, we’re fighting – it’s awful.”

Noora lay next to him and stroked his hair. “What’s up, Issy?”

Isak moaned and turned his face to the side. Nothing seemed to be working any more. He didn’t _want_ to keep making bombs. He didn’t _want_ to keep killing people. He didn’t _want_ to see his friends arrested and shot. He just wanted it all to stop, and he could go back to his peaceful lab at the university and pick up some of the research he’d had to abandon when war broke out.

But he knew that it wasn’t the whole story. Perhaps before the night at the jazz club a peaceful, studious existence would have been enough but … Now he wanted more than just the peace of the laboratory and space to work. He wanted to be held again – _held,_ like that…

“That guy you met at the club,” said Noora, softly. “You liked him, huh, Issy?”

“What guy?” asked Eva sharply.

Noora winked at her. “The guy he was wrapped around all night before the police came. I watched them make out on the dancefloor for hours. Is he the problem?”

Isak shrugged. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.”

“Isak _pulled_?” gasped Eva, delightedly. “Why did nobody tell me this before?”

“I didn’t _pull_ ,” said Isak grumpily. “I didn’t get the chance, I got cockblocked by a load of policemen raiding the place, remember?”

“Oh Issy,” grinned Eva. “This makes perfect sense now. You’re – you’re pining!”

“I’m not _pining_ ,” snapped Isak. “I don’t even know him.”

“What’s his name?” questioned Eva excitedly. Isak rolled his eyes, but when Eva didn’t let up, he shrugged his shoulders. “Henrik. He’s some kind of northern farm boy, down for the week. He likes jazz a lot, I know that. I didn’t really follow what he was talking about half the time to be honest. I was so fucking nervous.”

“He’s really good looking,” breathed Noora. “You should have _seen_ him, Eva.”

“If he’s a farm boy, maybe he would be a good contact for Magnus!” suggested Eva. “He’s always looking for ways to get fresh fruit and veg.”

“Nooooo,” groaned Isak. “This is all getting way too complicated. And there’s no way that I’ll ever see him again. Jonas won’t let me out again after this.”

“Look,” said Noora. “The club’ll open as normal in a couple of days. If your guy liked you half as much as you liked him, he’ll be back. If I see him hanging around – I’ll drop a few hints, see if he’s interested in sending goods to Magnus – and then, well, maybe there’s a way we could get you guys to see each other again. Finish that dance you started.”

Isak sat up, unlooked-for hope leaping in his chest. “You – you really mean that?”

Noora looked at Eva. Eva looked at Noora.

“You know that we can’t possibly tell Jonas.”

Eva’s face fell, but Noora fixed her with a look. “Eva – you know we can’t.”

The other girl sighed. “But what if he gets caught?”

Noora folded her arms with characteristic determination. “Magnus and I never get caught. And the way Isak’s going, he’ll either explode, or sneak out on his own anyway. At least this way we can … manage the situation.”

Eva blew out her cheeks. “Okay, I guess he doesn’t have to know. It’s Isak’s private life after all.” She turned to Isak with a cheeky smile. “I can’t really grudge you getting some dick, Issy, after all I get plenty every night.”

“Argh, shut up!” Isak threw his arms around his face. “Noo noo noo noo noo.”

“That’s it, then,” Noora got to her feet. “It sounds like a plan.”

After she left, Isak wearily got to his feet and took his place at the bomb-making table and reached for the fuse wire. But even as he worked, his mind was elsewhere.

_Come with me._

_Where?_

_Anywhere._

 

_***_

 

Jonas came back the next morning to find Eva and Isak laughing together over their soup, combing each other’s hair and trading insults. He looked surprised but pleased to see Isak up and about; for almost three days Isak had lain dead to the world underneath the work bench and refused all food and conversation.

Isak looked up briefly as Jonas entered and flushed. He hadn’t forgotten Jonas’s desperate offer the morning he got back and the tension was evident on Jonas’s face because he glanced at Isak then looked away. Isak’s stomach dropped and for the lack of anything else to do, seated himself at the bench and mechanically began to wire up some switches and batteries. He knew he couldn’t avoid talking to Jonas forever, but the moment was already on its way.

Jonas asked Eva curtly to make herself scarce. Eva looked daggers at him for a moment, but correctly realising it was not the time to take Jonas up on his attitude, climbed out of the dug-out to the cellar above.

Isak fixed his eyes on his work.

Jonas sat down awkwardly on his blanket roll. “So you’re … you’re feeling better, Issy, yeah?”

Isak managed a small smile. “Yeah. Guess I got it out of my system a bit, huh.”

After a long, awkward pause, his friend coughed and shuffled his feet. “I need to say sorry, about the crude stuff I said the other night. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. I was just desperate for you to stay, to be happy, you know?”

Isak tried to breathe normally but the sweat on his fingers kept making the wire slip. “It’s okay. Don’t need to say any more about it.”

“No, but I do, Issy. I _know_ you like me – in _that_ way, I mean – but it was unfair of me to exploit it. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Isak’s cheeks flamed red with embarrassment.

So Jonas _knew_ ; he knew of Isak’s hopeless, unrequited crush, all this time he knew, but in his typical Jonas-way he’d kept it to himself. Had he noticed the reaction of Isak’s body when they were pressed together, had he known when Isak would extricate himself in the middle of the night to give himself some relief? The thought made him want to cover his face in shame.

 _That’s it, then_ , he thought. _No more cuddles, no more sleeping together, no more affection. I wish it had remained unsaid, so we could have kept doing it._

“But I don’t want it to change anything between us, you know? Don’t ever think I don’t love you to bits. I won’t ever betray you. I’m not trying to keep you prisoner, I just want to keep you safe,” said Jonas with wide, earnest eyes. “You’re my best friend – you always have been, and you always will be.”

Isak dropped the fuses and turned to face him. “Look, Jonas, you don’t have to worry,” he managed to say finally. “I’m over you. Really. Maybe it’s having to live on top of each other for months on end, maybe I’ve just grown out of it, but I just know …” he knew he couldn’t say _how_ he knew – “I don’t have anything other than friendship for you anymore.”

Jonas coughed embarrassedly. “Really?”

Isak nodded, with some truth. “Really.”

His friend breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. I’m sorry about … the stuff I’m doing with Eva. It’s too much for you, I get that. We’ll try to quieten that down, or maybe you can hide up top and get some fresh air if we need privacy. Would that be okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” said Isak, a little more gruffly than he meant. He wished Jonas would stop being so trusting. For the sake of a man that he barely knew, Isak was inches away from putting them all in danger again. He hated himself, but he couldn’t stop.

“Okay,” Jonas held out his arms. “Let’s drop it then. Give me a hug.”

 

 ***

 

Magnus called by with some apples and bread for them the next day. Jonas was out, and he threw the crate down on the floor of the dug-out with a crash.

“So Issy, guess you got lucky the other night, huh? Noora told us your gossip and Vilde’s absolutely going crazy over it.”

“God, does everyone know now?” snapped Isak. “It’s going to get back to Jonas at this rate.”

“Come on, it’s only a bit of fun.” Magnus pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Jonas won’t ever know. Anyway he’s already ripped all over our asses wanting to know what happened but I just said I was busy playing piano and Noora said you just sat in a dark corner and drank beer. I spend my life taking ridiculous risks here, but I know how not to get caught while I do them. Come tell us about your strapping young farm boy.”

“Well I don’t know about strapping,” said Isak doubtfully, recalling fragments of his chat with Even, “he’s tall, but kind of thin I think, and he’s wounded from where a Nazi shot him, so he kind of limps a lot. He’s from the North, but his grandmother just died and he’s inheriting his grandfather’s farm, so he might know how to get some trade in.”

“Wow,” said Magnus cheerfully. “He sounds perfect. Okay, I’ll keep an eye out for him. Don’t worry Issy, it’s just our little secret.”

 

 ***

 

Two days later, Vilde delivered some carrots and potatoes for them. As she passed Isak, she slipped a note into his hand. Isak shot a glance at Jonas, but his friend was busy studying a map in the dim candlelight. Surreptitiously he turned his back, and peered at the writing in Vilde’s neat hand:

_The farmer has landed. Tomorrow, 9pm. Be ready._


	11. The Best Apples In Norway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apple sex. It’s a thing, apparently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dating from World War I, "shell shock" is probably the most famous term for PTSD caused by the fear and trembling of being exposed to the horrors of bombing and warfare. Victims could be triggered into uncontrollable panic by hearing noises that resembled those they had experienced during wartime.
> 
> Before antibiotics became widespread, home-made herbal remedies such as poultices made from grated potato, bread-and-milk, cabbage or mustard-seed were commonly used to draw out infections from wounds. Salt and boiled water were also used to sterilise wounds, but still infections could easily spread, leading to sepsis, gangrene, and if untreated, death.

Sun blazed over the Park National and seagulls cruised in the blue of the sky overhead. For an autumnal morning it was still pretty hot, though the red of the early fall leaves flamed against the green of the battered lawns. Leaning in the shadow of a tree, Even glanced at his watch irritably. 9am. Where the hell was Christoffer?

At that moment he saw his handler casually making his way up to the appointed meeting spot on the park bench, shake out his copy of _Dagbladet_ and start to read it. It was the signal that the coast was clear.

Even sat down next to him with a bump and lit a cigarette. Christoffer didn’t acknowledge him, seemingly absorbed in his newspaper, but he murmured a soft, “Well?”

“That was a shitty stunt you pulled last night,” snapped Even, viciously blowing out a cloud of smoke. “Fuck you, Hawknight.”

Christoffer blinked and turned a page, his eyes moving along the lines of newsprint. “What shitty stunt, Seabird?”

“Sending the police in to raid the exact club where I was looking for Valtersen. You ruined the whole goddamn operation!”

“I didn’t send in the police,” protested Christoffer, but Even laughed sarcastically. “Don’t try to deny it, Christoffer. I hid and watched them search the place. At least one of them had a SAPO uniform. It was dark but I could see the white flashes.”

Christoffer shrugged. “Clubs get raided all the time for black market stuff. Nothing to do with me.”

“Yeah, by regular police, but why was a SAPO agent with them?” retorted Even. “Lie all you want but if you don’t trust me to bring Valtersen in, then bring me off the fucking case.”

Christoffer let out his breath in a sharp exhalation. “Was he – was he there?”

“No!” said Even rather too quickly to be convincing. “But I had a lead on him, Christoffer, I met someone who was going to take me to him, and then your boys showed up and ruined everything. I only just got out of there in time myself.”

The SAPO officer glanced pointedly at the purpling bruise on Even’s neck. “Doesn’t seem like it was a wasted trip, though. Enjoyed yourself, did you?”

Even’s heart stopped briefly. “How else did you think I managed to get the information on Valtersen?” he said, as lightly as he could. 

A flicker of interest shot across Christoffer’s face followed by a bitter smile. “Yeah? Was he good?”

Even felt Valtersen’s soft lips trailing over his neck again, and he blushed slightly and mumbled something.

Christoffer’s eyes dropped and there was a long pause before he spoke again. “Your week is up, Hawknight. You remember what I said if you hadn’t brought in Valtersen?”

“I need more time,” said Even angrily. “I was almost there but you screwed it up. I’m not responsible for your fuck-ups. Stay away from Fossbakken, stay away from Saetre, stay away from everyone, including me.”

“Like I said,” shrugged Christoffer, “that was nothing to do with me. Your week is up.”

“Then I’ll talk to Willhelm,” fired back Even. “Tell him that you’re not capable of being a handler, that you can’t keep anyone off my back, and you’re putting the whole mission in jeopardy. Who knows what else I’ll tell him when I’m in there?”

His handler blanched slightly, though his hands never as much as quivered. “You wouldn’t.”

Even sneered. “You try and bring me down, Chris, and I swear you’ll regret it.”

Christoffer blew out his cheeks and stared into the middle distance for a moment, before folding the newspaper and tossing it into Even’s lap as he walked off.

“Okay. You’ve got a stay of execution. One more week.”

 

***

 

Three days later, Even stared into the battered mirror of the gentlemen’s public toilets in despair, and pushed a lock of hair out of his face.

He was looking like absolute _shit_.

His hair lay flat to his head with grease, his lips were chapped, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His skin looked white as paper, and his hands shook like a victim of shell-shock. Hardly a catch as far as Valtersen – no, _Isak_ – was concerned. He shut his eyes, trying to calm his racing thoughts.

Where the fuck had he gone? Where the fuck were _all_ of them?

For the past three days Even had combed the clubs and searched the markets but Fossbakken and Saetre seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He didn’t meet with Christoffer because there was nothing to report. Deciding that it was best not to contact Sana until he had a firm lead, he stayed away from his radio set with difficulty. Finally, in desperation, he decided to hang around the area where Vilde Hellerud ran a brothel; there were many public toilets where men could meet each other, and Even had spent an interesting few hours encountering various punters engaged in furtive sex acts and trying to avoid the glances of customers who were weighing up whether he might be up for some fun. He had just walked in on two guys jerking each other off in a stall without a door. They had glanced at him casually, before going straight back to what they were doing, seemingly pleased to have an audience.

He was just about to give it all up as a bad job and go catch up on some sleep, when the door opened behind him and in strolled Fossbakken, humming a little tune. Even stood, electrified. Fossbakken walked straight past him to the urinal to relieve himself, and the sound of merry tinkling filled the air. After a moment, as if he felt Even’s eyes on the back of his head, he turned his face and spoke cheerfully over his shoulder.

“Hey man, no offence, but you’ve picked the wrong man here. I like pussy, you know?”

Even coughed in confusion. “Sorry, I didn’t mean …”

“No worries,” Fossbakken shook himself out and zipped back up, washing his hands in the tiny basin and peering at himself in the mirror. “God, I need a haircut. I can’t see anything through this fringe.”

Even seized his chance. “You – you aren’t Magnus Fossbakken by any chance? I think I saw you playing piano down at the Rainbow Club?”

The other raised his eyebrows. “My fame reaches before me! You’re a jazz man?”

“Yeah,” said Even enthusiastically, adding meaningfully, “I was a huge Svein Arne Øvergaard fan, pity he’s gone to London now.”

Fossbakken hummed non-committally and dried his hands, seemingly lost in thought. Even stepped closer, mustering all his powers of persuasion. “But beyond all that - I heard that you might be able to sell on some fruit and vegetables. I run my grandparents’ old farm up in Skjerven and we’re always having supplies that we could do with selling at city prices. You know those small red Skjerven apples? We’ve got plenty of those from the summer harvest.”

“Hmmm,” said Fossbakken, consideringly, eyeing Even up and down. “We don’t get that many jazz-loving country boys to be honest.”

Even smiled; he’d prepared for this question. “I know, but my parents moved up to Tromso when I was a kid and I’ve only just moved back down here after they died. I practically grew up in the jazz festivals there and I miss it.”

Fossbakken thought for a moment, pulling at his fringe and squinting at his reflection doubtfully before making up his mind. “Okay. Well look, this isn’t the place to discuss this. Why don’t you meet me at the Red Steps tonight and nine o’clock and we’ll chat more?”

“The Red Steps?” asked Even. “Isn’t that a brothel?”

“Anything wrong with that?” queried Fossbakken and Even shrugged. “No, not at all. I just wondered – a fair amount of Nazis go there, don’t they?”

“Don’t worry about Nazis,” grinned Fossbakken clapping him on the shoulder. “When someone goes through those doors, he becomes the same as all of us. Doesn’t matter if he’s a fascist or a commie, gay or straight, black brown or white. He’s still a man.”

 

***

 

Even spent a long time preparing for his visit with Fossbakken that evening. He bought a different jersey and jacket from the old clothes stall, and washed and styled his hair. Despite Christoffer’s advice, he shaved off his stubble as it was beginning to make his face itch, and put a metal spoon underneath his eyes to try to reduce the puffiness.

When he assessed his wound where Christoffer had shot him, his heart sank. The skin around the bullet hole looked red and tight, and it wasn’t healing properly. Infections like this could very often prove serious, if not fatal, and sepsis was a very common outcome of open sores. Gritting his teeth, he cleaned it as best he could with boiled water, shook some salt into the wound, and applied another home-made poultice of raw grated potato. Finally he limped to a market at the other end of Oslo and purchased a small and very expensive bag of tiny, sweet crimson apples.

When he arrived at the Red Steps, it was already dark, but the red light above the ornately-carved entrance cast a dim glow down the street. Even lit a cigarette and loitered at the corner for a few minutes. Occasionally a punter would pass him, avert his face and slip in hurriedly. Fossbakken had been right – all human life was here. He saw businessmen, railway workers, priests, Nazi officers, old and young men, men in uniform and men without, all seeking some kind of furtive escape from their everyday existence. Apart from the customers, he couldn’t see any kind of officers or stake-out, and after a while, satisfied that it was not a trap, he stubbed out his cigarette and approached the door.

A blonde girl in a black corset greeted him as soon as he limped through the entrance. “Good evening sir! Come this way!”

Even recognised Vilde Lien Hellerud from his file, a burlesque dancer turned madame, who had taken over the brothel after it had been raided earlier that year. He gave her his best and most winning smile. “Actually, I’m here to see Mr. Fossbakken? I have … an appointment.”

Hellerud dimpled at him. “I’m sorry! I’m afraid Mr. Fossbakken isn’t here at the moment.”

Even frowned. “Oh. Any idea when he’ll be back?”

The girl arched her eyebrows at him. “He’s been called away until tomorrow morning I’m afraid. But he wondered if you could talk business with his assistant instead? Come this way, he’s just in the back.”

Dark shadows flickered against the walls as Even followed her down a shabby velvet-lined corridor, past numerous doorways hung with nothing but filmy curtains. Through them he could see the outlines of naked figures engaged in a variety of embraces; here and there a girl would slip out of the room and flit away, holding her clothes in her arms, other times a client would duck hurriedly into the passageway, buttoning his shirt or jacket and studiously avoiding his eyes. Vilde led him up a flight of stairs and along another corridor, where she pushed open a heavy door and beckoned him inside.  

“This is Mr. Fossbakken’s associate, Mr. Moe.”

 

***

 

Even stood, heart pounding, looking at Valtersen for a long moment.

“You,” he managed to say, and it was all he could do to get the words out.

“I thought it might be you,” said Valtersen, perched nervously on the edge of a table. “I _hoped_ it was you.”

“I’ll … I’ll leave you to talk,” said Hellerud, with a nervous giggle, and left them.

The room was small, with nothing but a table, two chairs and a bed; it didn’t look like a room where clients visited, perhaps it was an office where someone could sleep. Hellerud, perhaps, or even Fossbakken. Even felt the blood rush back to his head as he took it all in, realising for the first time how Valtersen had managed to access the Wolf’s private apartments as a rent-boy so easily. “So … uh … you work here?”

“Here? No!” protested Valtersen, “I mean – not _that_ kind of work,” he amended. “I just know these guys from way back.”

“Ah, okay,” said Even, strangely relieved.

“I was at university with Magnus,” confessed Valtersen, a small blush creeping over his cheeks. Even watched him pink up, transfixed. He really was rather adorable. “I help out when he needs something.”

Even fidgeted; the pain from his wound was still attacking him, and Valtersen looked suddenly worried. “I’m sorry, Henrik, your leg. Come and sit down.”

Lowering himself onto one of the chairs, Even was keenly aware of Valtersen perched above him on the table like a bird. “So … I guess I’m here to sell you some apples, huh?”

Isak laughed, an unfamiliar sound to Even, but it was so clear and soft that he revelled in it like a splash of lake water. Isak looked suddenly very young again, despite his severe haircut. “Yeah, apples. I’ll buy anything you’ve got. How many can you sell?”

“Millions,” grinned Even. “As many as you want.”

He pushed over the bag of apples to Isak, who took one and bit into it with childish eagerness. Even saw the white flesh under the scarlet skin of the apple as he chewed, eyes closed with bliss. “God this tastes good. I miss fresh things so much sometimes.”

“Plenty more where those came from,” said Even, a little huskier than he’d meant, watching Isak’s throat bob as he swallowed. Isak glanced at him, amused, and held out the unbitten side of the apple to him. “Fancy a bite?”

Their eyes locked for a brief moment, before Even slowly leaned over, opened his lips and bit hard and suggestively into the fruit in Isak’s fingers. Isak gazed at him closely as Even’s sharp teeth sank through the crimson skin and the juice gushed out over his tongue. Even couldn't resist an appreciative groan, and Isak smiled. “That good, huh?”

“Yeah,” muttered Even, swallowing, and as Isak started to pull back, Even caught his wrist and kissed it, his tongue circling around the younger boy’s pulse-point, making Isak catch his breath. He took Isak’s hand in his and, maintaining eye contact all the while, slowly put each finger in his mouth in turn, sucking the juice off them one by one. He heard Isak’s soft gasps as the younger boy closed his eyes in bliss.

“Open your mouth,” muttered Even, pushing the apple towards him. Valtersen obeyed, his tongue curving over the last unbroken piece of apple. “Wider,” breathed Even, “that’s it, baby, open up.” As Isak bit down, gazing into Even’s face through his long eyelashes, Even felt the last of his self-control leaving the building. He brushed Isak’s mouth with his finger. “Eat it, baby, swallow it down.”

An arm curled around his neck and Isak’s lips met his, soft and tasting of apple juice. Even’s vision went from black and white into glorious technicolour as fingers roamed over every inch of his face, his hair, his neck. He was dimly aware of Isak sliding from the table into his lap, and the soft moan he let out as Even pulled him into his arms and held him tightly. The bag of apples went flying and went bouncing away over the floor in all directions.

“Don’t stop,” whispered Isak. “Don’t stop.”

Even had no intention of stopping. He lost track of time, lost track of space, lost track of nothing but Isak, of the way his body moved, of the soft intoxicating sounds he made in Even's ear, of the sight and smell and taste of him –

Until –

 

His professional wariness at length brought him back to consciousness. Isak was sprawled in his lap, his tongue shyly searching Even’s mouth, whilst his soft weight in Even’s lap was almost tipping him over the edge. They were moments away from being naked and the point of no return; Isak’s hands were up inside his shirt, while his own had unbuttoned Isak’s jeans and were caressing Isak’s bared hips in a vain attempt to hold back the inevitable.

 _No._ What the _hell_ was he doing?

This was ridiculous. He had to get Isak – no, _Valtersen_ – out of here as soon as he could. Whatever good fortune had put them both in each other’s way, he was pretty sure that it would not last long. Downstairs the place was practically swarming with Nazi officers.

Reluctantly he pulled away from Valtersen’s kiss and held his face in both of his palms. “Listen … uh … Tarjei…”

“What’s wrong?” muttered Valtersen hoarsely, chasing his mouth. “Keep going.”

Even sighed, pulling back with an effort. “I need to go back tonight. Now.”

Valtersen looked almost comically dismayed. “Now?”

“I haven’t left anyone in charge of the farm,” lied Even. “I can’t be away for too long. This was only meant to be a – short trip and I’ve been here days.”

He wasn’t quite prepared for the sight of the other’s distress. “Okay,” Valtersen managed to say, bravely enough, though looking utterly devastated. “You – you don’t want to stay a little longer?”

Even pulled him closer and wrapped his arms around the younger man to comfort him, murmuring softly into his ear. “You should see it. It’s a beautiful farm. A thousand acres, around the banks of the Vangsmjøse, with long orchard groves reaching down to the water. There’s an old seat where you can watch the sun go down over the lake. For a few moments every evening, the whole valley lights up golden, so you can’t tell which is sky and which is water.”

Isak nestled closer to him, breath warm on his cheek. “It sounds lovely, Henrik.”

“It’s more than lovely, it’s beautiful,” said Even warmly, surprising himself, stroking one hand gently over Isak's soft hair.

He wasn’t lying – not as such. He started describing a farm near where he grew up, and it was easy to paint in the little details for Isak’s delight; the white-painted gate in the moss-covered stone wall; the goat with the withered beard who ate the rotten apples as they fell and got drunk; the ginger cat who lay in the sun, and the cheerful housekeeper who chopped, boiled and strained the produce and transformed them into jams and jellies. At Christmas they would have home-made applesauce with the pig, and in the summer the cider from the year before would be ready, and there would be parties in the moonlight and dancing down the long orchard groves. In the winter, the farm was remote and cut off, with snow-drifts piled high through the rocky roads, so that they had to stockpile supplies and firewood to see the long winter through in front of the roaring fire.

“I’d love to see it,” said Isak wistfully, burying his head in Even’s neck.

Even closed his eyes, breathing in the smell of Isak’s skin. For a moment the vision was so strong in front of him that he almost believed that it could be true. A place somewhere – just he and Isak, far away from the war and the Nazis and the endless fear; a life just for them, with no one to judge or condemn them, with a log fire and a ginger cat and an old stone seat to watch the sunset from, and –

 _No_.

 _Get Valtersen out of the city, radio in Sana, and bargain for your own freedom._ _That’s the only way that either of you are getting out alive._

He turned and cupped Isak’s face with his hand.

“Come with me.”

Isak’s green eyes stared at him longingly for a moment, before his lashes dropped onto his cheek.

“I can’t leave my friends.”

Even took his hand and stroked his fingers, as persuasively as he knew how. “Why not? Are they going to give you what you need? Do they have anything like ... this?”

Isak shook his head, mutely, and the look of pain on his face made Even want to kiss it away.

“Come with me. Live with me. No one would ever know. You can come back any time you need; every time we need to sell apples to the city, or –“

“I can’t,” said Isak, biting his lip. “Please don’t ask me. You don’t know how unbelievably difficult it is to say no, when all I want is to come with you.”

Even kissed his fingers, his open palm, held Isak’s hands to his cheek and shut his eyes. _Oh God_ , he thought blurrily, _this stupid, sweet, obstinate, loyal, passionate – dangerous boy._

_Get him out of Oslo – now! Hit him over the head if you have to!_

Even mastered himself with an effort, and the pain in his voice when he spoke again to Isak was real.

“Please, _please_ – Isak …”

There was a sudden intake of breath, and Isak was staring at him with wide-open eyes.

"What?" asked Even, confused.

“You called me Isak.”

_Oh shit._

Even looked at him, realisation slowly dawning as Isak moved warily off him, pulling his clothes back into position, staring at him in blank horror.

The next moment there was a flicker of movement behind him, and Isak’s head snapped up, eyes wide with dismay. “No! No, Jonas!” he cried just as a heavy object caught Even from behind and sent him crashing out of the chair.

The last thing Even remembered seeing was the remains of the broken apple core right in front of him, immediately before his head hit the floor and everything went black.


	12. Smokescreen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Officially the worst date that Isak’s EVER been on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: In the past few days I’ve learned more than I care to know about different varieties of Norwegian apples, soils and farming techniques, but for obvious reasons I won’t bore you with them here. You’ll learn all you need to know from Magnus in this next chapter …!
> 
> Poor Isak goes through the wringer in this one - but it's all OK I promise!

 

Isak stared around him in shock and dismay. The small room seemed suddenly full of people; Jonas stood in front of him still holding the bolster with which he had just hit – _Henrik –_ lying unconscious at his feet; Noora next to him holding her small silver revolver in both gloved hands, and behind them stood Magnus, with a sheepish expression and hands shoved deep in his pockets. From the look on his face, Isak had no doubt that Magnus had been listening in.

“Who is he?” rapped out Jonas angrily, pointing to the slumped body on the floor, but his words sounded as distorted and echoing as if he was speaking underwater. When Isak just gaped at him, Jonas put his hand on his shoulder and shook him hard. “Issy, _wake up_. Who the fuck is this guy?”

“Whoever he is, he’s no farmer,” said Noora, eyeing the figure on the floor warily, keeping the revolver trained on him as she pushed at his wrist with the toe of her shoe. “From the look of it, those hands have never cut a branch in their life.”

Jonas picked up one of the scattered apples and thrust it at Isak. “What are these? Did you eat one?”

Still thunderstruck, Isak gazed at him mutely. The look on his friend’s face made him quail. Magnus leaned over and inspected one, bit into it thoughtfully.

“These are Red Aroma. Danish apples. You can get them in the market by the port.”

Isak suddenly found his voice. “No. He brought them. They’re from his farm.”

Jonas sighed exasperatedly. “He’s not a farmer, Issy, and these aren’t his apples. You’ve been duped.”

Things seemed to be going rather too fast for Isak to take in. “You’re wrong. He’s got a farm near Skjerven. There’s orchards and a lake and a stone seat. The way he _talked_ about it – he wasn’t making it up, Jonas, there’s been some terrible mistake.”

“Then how did he know your name, Issy? Tell me that?”

Isak dropped his eyes. “I – I don’t know,” he said lamely. “I think – maybe Magnus said it during the police raid? But I had told him my name was Tarjei, so – I don’t know.”

Magnus sat down next to him heavily and threw an arm around his neck. “Look, kid. I know you like this guy. You made that pretty obvious,” and his friend blushed slightly. “And you’re having a whirlwind wartime romance and all that. I get it.” Isak covered his face in embarrassment. “But he doesn’t know the first thing about farming. He told me that he produced red Skjerven apples, but the soil there isn’t good for apple trees, and that he had some from the summer harvest, but the early harvests only produce green cooking apples. These apples here are from Denmark’s black market, Issy, keep up.”

“Then why did you let me meet him?” spat Isak bitterly.

“Because I didn’t have anything to go on other than a hunch,” said Magnus equably. “And you seemed really keen on him, so I figured, let you guys have your fun. But when I heard him say your real name, then – ”

Isak turned to look at Jonas. It took a huge effort to meet his friend’s eyes.

“And how did you – ?”

“Eva told me,” said Jonas, his eyes stony. “I got back early, and you were gone, so –“

“It was all I could do to hold him off as long as I did,” put in Magnus earnestly. “He was all for going in as soon as you guys started – you know.”

“Great,” muttered Isak, crimson-faced. “Thanks, Eva.”

“She told me because she has more common sense than you, you little fuck,” shouted Jonas. “You’re a danger to yourself, Isak! You’re just too trusting. What’s his name, this jazz-loving farm boy? Oh God Issy do you even know how that _sounds_? Most of the farmers I know have never heard of jazz, or don’t have time for it.”

“His name’s Henrik,” said Isak miserably. “That’s what he told me. But maybe it’s not. Maybe I don’t know anything anymore.”

The door opened and Vilde slipped in, her finger severely on her lips. “Oh my God!” she hissed as she saw the scene in front of her. “What’s going on?”

“Issy’s been compromised,” said Jonas bluntly. “We have get him out of here now.”

“I’ll say,” snapped Vilde. “There’s police banging on the door downstairs saying they’ve got a search warrant!”

Instantly the room became eerily quiet.

“Is this a trap?” whispered Noora. “Fuck, Issy! This was a trap all along!”

After a heartbeat of terrified silence Jonas took control, pacing to the door and shooting a quick, practiced glance outside. “Right, let’s get out of here. Are the police at the front?”

“And the back, yes,” said Vilde, eyes wide. “How can we –”

“Smokescreen. Get some matches,” shot back Jonas. “Break some of the lamps. Dampen the curtains and set fire to them. This place is full of clients. If there’s a stampede, we might have a cat’s chance in hell of getting out unnoticed.”

 

***

 

Smoke billowed down the corridors as Vilde and Noora ran down the length of the corridor, banging on all the walls as loudly as they could. “Fire!” they shouted. “Fire!”

From the landing above drifted a thick pall of smoke from where Magnus was enthusiastically smashing kerosene lamps against the walls and fanning the flames, dousing water on the tiny conflagrations to ensure the fire didn’t get out of hand.

Instantly all was pandemonium. Girls ran screaming out of the service rooms and scattered in all directions, as well as a few pretty boys hastily pulling their sheets around them to conceal their modesty. Clients threw back the filmy curtains and emerged in various states of undress, knocking against each other in the narrow halls and scrambling for the entrance. Shouts and curses filled the air, and a few elbows and punches were already being thrown.

“Get out!” screamed Vilde, banging on a copper gong that hung above the stairs. “Everybody out!”

Isak ducked a quick glance over the banisters and through the drifting fumes he saw a mass of struggling people in the tiny front door. A crowd of half-clothed men and women were trying to force their way out to the street while a knot of black-uniformed SAPO officers were attempting to push their way in. From the screams and shouts coming from the other side of the stairs he figured that exactly the same thing was happening at the back.

“Police! Police!” came the shout from below. “Clear the hall!”

“They’ll start shooting in a moment,” said Isak, stricken. “This won’t hold them back forever.”

“Okay,” Magnus threw open the skylight and peered out. “All clear. Looks like it’s the chimneys road home for you guys.”

Jonas was bending over the unconscious figure on the floor, slapping hard at his face. “Wake up! Wake up! Who sent you?”

“Stop, you’ll hurt him!” cried Isak and Jonas threw a furious glance in his direction. “It’s important! He led them here. We have to know!”

“Leave him,” urged Magnus, pulling at his sleeve. “Quick!”

Jonas pushed him off, angrily. “No! We take him with us!”

Magnus whirled to face him, face incredulous. “He’s too fucking heavy, Jonas, you’ll never –”

“They’re coming up!” cried Vilde from the hallway as a shot rang out below. “Hurry!”

“Fuck okay! Issy, come on!” Jonas flung himself away from the body on the floor and scrambled out of the window. “Isak! What are you doing!”

Isak was kneeling over the slumped figure, hand gently touching the unconscious face. He could no longer see the blue eyes, closed as they were, and marred by a bloodied streak on the delicate cheek-bone from the blow to the back of the head. The soft lips where he had lost himself just minutes earlier were bruised and purpling. Without meaning to, he ran his hand through the soft blond hair in a farewell caress.

Magnus swore and lunged towards Isak, grabbing him away by the scruff of his neck and propelling him up and towards the window. “Get the hell out, you lovesick idiot. Now!”

 

***

 

Isak skidded over the rooftops, crouching double, confusedly following Jonas who flitted over the tiles in front of him like a cat. Bitter autumn rain whirled in his face and blinded him, but he dashed it away impatiently. _No time, no time_ , he thought to himself sternly, but again and again the image of Henrik lying wounded and unconscious would surge up in his mind to the beat of his racing heart.

From time to time they came across a break in the rooftops, and they had to jump across small alleyways, flinging themselves hard against across to the slippery slates and hauling themselves up the other side. Jonas took this route all the time and was used to the acrobatics of it, but Isak found it hard to keep up. Yet every time he feared he would lose sight of Jonas, his friend would duck back into his eyeline and wave him on. Still his strength was failing him, and on one particularly wide jump across a deserted alleyway he lost his balance on the descent, and rolled back over the edge, legs kicking wildly at nothingness.

“Jonas!” he screamed, forgetting the need for caution as his fingers began to slip. “ _Jonas_!”

“Shit! Isak!” Jonas saw him scrabbling desperately on the ledge and ran back. “Take my hand, Issy! Take it!”

Isak grabbed wildly at Jonas’s outstretched hand and clasped his wrist. “Pull yourself up!” shouted Jonas. “Now!”

“I can’t!” panted Isak, blinking away the rain in his eyes. “I’m slipping!”

“Fuck!” exclaimed Jonas as they both began to slither inexorably towards the edge. “I can’t hold you!”

Isak cried out as they both dropped half a metre, and another one. Looking down, he saw the alley swing dangerously far below him before Jonas, kicking out determinedly, managed to hook his leg around a chimney pot and halt their descent. “Ugh, okay,” he groaned. “Pull, Issy, pull yourself up. Get your foot – there, that’s right. Now put your hand – yes, well done. Come on, _come on_ , you can do it!”

It took Isak more physical strength than he’d ever used before to drag himself up the incline and into Jonas’s waiting arms, but suddenly, there was the roof underneath him and Jonas’s hand hauling at the waistband of his trousers, before they both rolled exhausted onto their backs, too tired to move.

“You okay?” whispered Jonas brokenly. “I always did have a history of breaking you out of bad dates.”

Isak forced a laugh. “That’s probably the worst date I’ve ever been on.”

A sudden explosion lit the sky and Isak jerked upright. Back from where they had come, raging flames were lighting up the Oslo skyline. Even from that distance, Isak could tell that the whole upper storey of the brothel was ablaze.

Magnus had fired the entire chamber – the chamber where they had left Henrik unconscious.

_Oh God – Henrik._

Isak watched the fire burn in powerless horror, the thick red smoke spreading itself against the sky and catching in his lungs. He was only dimly aware of Jonas’s comforting arm around him, oblivious to the screaming rain around them that mixed with the burning tears in his eyes.

 

***

 

“I know you’re grieving, but I need to know how you met him,” said Jonas flatly, standing in front of Isak with his arms crossed. “I want to know where, what time, how it happened, who said what to who. Someone got to you, Issy. Now we have to find out who it was.”

They were back in the dugout after their perilous flight, wrapped in blankets and with hot drinks that Eva wordlessly brought them and left them to it. Isak kept his eyes on the floor as he told Jonas the full story, leaving nothing out.

“So you never told him your true identity,” said Jonas thoughtfully. “Yet he’d been trailing you for some time, and he knew enough to approach Magnus and go to the clubs that Noora sings at. He had good intel on you that would only have come from specialist files, so he knew you’re with me. And twice you met and twice the police raided you so it’s obviously a sting operation on our whole group. We have to find out who he was, what he knew, and who was sending him.”

Isak swallowed. _Who he was. What he knew. Past tense._

He stared at his scuffed boots, still wet from their escape across the roofs the night previously. Jonas hummed thoughtfully.

“I’d not seen that face around before, so they must have drafted someone new in. Crafty. I’ll get Noora on that for an ID. Did you ever meet him back here?”

Isak shook his head dumbly.

“But he asked you to come away with him, and you said no?”

Isak nodded, biting back the feeling of hollowness that was rapidly taking the place of his earlier grief.

_I said no. Now I’ll never get that chance again._

“Do you have any idea where the farm is that he was talking about? Did he say where it was in Skjerven?”

Isak shrugged. Jonas sat down next to him and his voice softened.

“I’m sorry, Issy. I know you liked him. But you followed your heart before, and look where it’s got you. Now you’ve got to follow your head.”

Isak barely heard him.

_He wasn’t lying when he asked me to come away with him._

_I know he wasn’t._

_I could feel it._

_But he’s gone._

_He’s dead._

He was too numb even to cry.

 

***

 

“Isak?”

Darkness. A bad dream, pain and a sudden blow, fingers warm against his, slipping out –

He was scrabbling, slipping, falling off the roof crying out for help from somebody, _anybody_ –

_Jonas!_

But the hand that reached down to him wasn’t Jonas’s, and the hair that blew across his face was blond, not black –

Eva was suddenly next to him, stroking his hair, her body warm against his.

“You were crying in your sleep,” she said. “I’m here. Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”

Isak turned over and buried his face in his sleeping bag, trying to block out his churning thoughts.

_No it won’t._

_Nothing will be okay any more_

 

***

 

Jonas’s voice, suddenly in his ear, a hand patting his cheek.

“Issy, open your eyes. Look at me. Are you okay?”

_No._

 

***

 

Eva and Jonas, talking in hurried, hushed tones above him.

“- that’s not the answer, Jonas –!”

“It’s no good, Eva, look at him, he’s breaking –”

“But where? Where do you suggest?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know.”

 

***

 

“Wake the fuck up, lazy bones!”

Isak opened his eyes to the noise of hollow scraping at the cellar trapdoor above them. For a moment he lay, seized in panic _–  It’s over, they’re here, they’ve found us_ – before he recognised Magnus’s voice from outside, breathy with exertion.

“What the hell’s happening up there?” shouted Jonas, closely followed by “What the fuck?”

“Help me, help me, he’s heavy,” gasped Magnus, before there was a sudden crash and something large plummeted through the trapdoor and hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Isak sat up in bewilderment, hope unlooked-for leaping in his heart as he saw a crumpled figure with bloodied blond hair lying in front of him, trussed like a pig with strips torn from a hessian apple sack. For a moment he was so astonished he could barely speak.

“How – what – _Magnus_?”

Magnus puffed proudly, sweat standing out on his forehead and in dark patches under his armpits as he rubbed his bicep. “Well after you guys skedaddled, I lugged this guy into the garbage chute and sent him down to the bins like the piece of trash he is. Then I fired the room. Got practically the whole police force helping me put the flames out. When they’d gone, I simply loaded the garbage cans into the truck and drove him over here. He’s still alive – just.”

The body on the floor stirred faintly as if in acquiescence.

“Good work, Magnus,” said Jonas, finally breaking from his surprise. “Now we finally get to find out who this bastard is.”


	13. A Tiny War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, spy. Bet you didn’t think things would turn out like this, huh?”
> 
> Even suffers the WORST hangover
> 
> and a lot of shit goes down
> 
> (but it’s all OK I promise).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prestigious Nobel Prize is a set of yearly international awards from Swedish and Norwegian institutions in recognition of academic, cultural or scientific advances, such as the discovery of DNA, the discovery of penicillin, and radiation. During World War Two, when Norway was invaded, no prizes were given out between 1940 and 1944. 
> 
> Before antibiotics were mass-produced, sulphonamide drugs (also known as sulfas) were used by doctors to fight infections in wounds. 
> 
> The word “antibiotic” was first used in 1941 to describe any small molecule made by a microbe that stops other harmful microbes growing – such as bacteria in wounds.

It was the second time in two weeks that Even had regained consciousness whilst tied up, and he could report with confidence that the experience had not improved with time. If anything, this particular occasion was worse.

His hands were above his head, tied to something – a hook? a drainage pipe? while his feet were lashed together and secured to a bolt in the floor so he was half-slumped in a sitting position with a sack roughly pulled over his head. His wounded thigh sang with pain and his head ached as if something heavy had crashed against it, which – thinking about it – was _exactly_ what had happened.

“He’s coming round,” said a voice from the darkness beyond his blindfold in foreign-accented Norwegian.

Even thought quickly. The voice sounded Spanish, which could only mean one thing. _Vasquez_ , undoubtedly – the Resistance leader whose exploits had shaken the Nazi powers in Norway to their core, the man they said could never be traced – the man whom Willhelm had called the Ghost of Oslo.

“Now we get some answers,” said Vasquez grimly.

Footsteps approached and under the lip of the sack that obscured his vision Even could see two boots stop and stand in front of him.

“Hey, spy. Bet you didn’t think things would turn out like this, huh?”

 _I certainly didn’t_ , thought Even confusedly, piecing together the scrambled memories of the night before. He had been kissing Isak – _Valtersen_ – and then – something –

_Oh shit._

“Let’s make this civil and courteous and nothing bad will happen to you –  _yet_ ,” said Vasquez, meaningfully. “Start by giving us your name, rank and number, spy.”

Even tried to speak but something odd had happened to his mouth; it was crusted with blood and dry as a bone. He moaned faintly and shook his head.

“I’ll repeat,” said Vasquez’s voice. “Name, rank and serial number. You Nazis are a bunch of OCD control-freaks, I know you’re coded down to the last digit. Tell us who you are, Nazi.”

“I’m not a Nazi,” muttered Even, but it was an effort to speak. He could sense Vaquez bending down to him, listening. “What was that, spy?”

“I’m not a Nazi,” repeated Even, but his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and made him gag. He retched dryly, falling limply to the side as far as his bonds would let him, but the injury in his thigh and his head made him gasp with pain, tensing and limply struggling between two poles of agony.

“Get him some water,” snapped Vasquez, and Even heard the clink of a dipper and the sound of water trickling into a cup. The next moment the sack was pulled away and a thin-faced girl, her eyes blazing with fury, stared at him from inches away.

“Your refreshment, Nazi scum,” she sneered as she threw the cup of water into his face. Even coughed and spluttered as the drops mixed with blood splashed into his mouth.

“Calm down, Eva,” said Vasquez, pulling the blindfold back into position. “We need him to talk.”

Even gulped, desperately fighting down the need to vomit. “More.”

“You’ll get more water when you answer the question, Nazi,” said Vasquez calmly. “Look, I’ll make this easy for you. We already know you’re not a farmer, and your name is almost certainly not Henrik. Magnus says you don’t know anything about apples, and you don’t run a farm near Skjerven. So let’s just cut the bullshit shall we?”

His mind in turmoil, Even groaned pitifully, playing desperately for time as he digested this information. So his cover was blown – _thanks Magnus_. In a moment, he turned over all the angles of what to say, what to do, and he could think of only one.

From his brief glance as the blindfold was pulled off, he had seen that he was in a small cellar – one the Ghost’s hideouts, most probably – and that Isak was not among the faces watching him.

“Do you want me to rough him up a little, Jonas?” asked Fossbakken’s voice cheerfully. “I’m sure I could get him to talk.”

“If there’s any roughing-up to be done, I’m doing it,” said the girl’s voice – _Vasquez’s girl it must be_ – Eva Mohn.

Vasquez was inexorable. “Name, rank, and serial number please, or I will really let Magnus loose on you. He would be more merciful than Eva, I’m sure.”

Even shut his eyes, mustering all his strength.

“I need to speak to Isak Valtersen,” he said, his voice thick and blurry. “I’m not saying another word until you bring him in here.”

Vasquez’s girl laughed angrily. “Really, Nazi? We already know you’re after Isak. Who do you think you are to bargain with us?”

Even shrugged. He didn’t think he could hold out much more, such was the pain already racking his body. “Bring Valtersen in, and I’ll tell you everything,” he said, leaning his head back in exhaustion, as the dizzying blackness roared up round him and consumed him again.

 

***

 

Sometime later, the sack was wrenched off his head, and Even blinked awake, cringing from the dazzling light from a lantern that was directed straight at his eyes. In confusion, he registered the dark shadow of Isak, sitting directly in front of him with his knees drawn up. The look on his face alone broke Even’s heart. His eyes were wet with unshed tears and his small fingers trembled on the trigger of the small squat revolver that pointed directly at Even.

“He’s here,” said Vasquez’s voice crisply from somewhere behind Isak. “Talk.”

“In private,” said Even, and Vasquez laughed sneeringly. “After how you’ve manipulated him so far? Not likely.”

“None of it was true, was it?” Isak broke in bitterly, and the pain in his voice made Even shiver. “None of it.”

Even took a deep breath, fighting to hold himself together in front of the green eyes that stared so sadly at him. “Some things weren’t true,” he admitted frankly. “I’m sorry for lying to you. But the most important thing is true.”

“Which is what?”

Even risked a quick look at Vasquez, who looked daggers at him, and back to Isak.

“You need to leave Oslo and come away with me right now.”

Isak looked at him, stunned, his lips parted. From the shadows behind him Fossbakken laughed out loud. “Jeez, this guy is unbelievable. He really won’t give up, will he?”

Vasquez stepped forward and wrenched Even’s face away from Isak painfully by his hair. “That’s enough of your crap. You explain to us right now who sent you and leave my friend _the fuck alone_.”

Even let out a gasp under Vasquez’s grasp, and Vasquez tightened his hold, making Even cry out loud.

“You’re hurting him!” protested Isak suddenly, and Vasquez turned on him. “Shut up, Issy! You have no idea how much I _could_ hurt him if we need to! By the time we get through this, I swear you won’t _recognise_ him if he doesn’t confess! He was out to _hurt_ you, Issy, hurt all of us, for fuck’s sake!”

“Are you sure I can’t rough him up?” asked Magnus eagerly. “I have a mean right-hook when I get going.”

“He’s mine, Magnus,” said Mohn, chillingly.

“Please, Isak,” Even got out finally through his pain. “I’m not a Nazi, I swear to you.”

“Then what are you then?” sneered Vasquez. “Why have you been following him?”

Even took a deep breath. “I’m a British agent. Codename Gule Gardiner, ID no 2121, location 051, mission 3332.”

The chamber was filled with a stunned silence, and Vasquez released him with a sudden jolt. It was evident that nobody had been expecting this particular revelation. _“What?”_

“You’re British?” chipped in Fossbakken curiously. “Your Norwegian’s pretty good.”

“No, I’m Norwegian,” said Even dizzily, “but I’ve been undercover since the start of the war. I’m part of a network of – well, never mind – but I’ve been searching for you for weeks.”

“Why?” put in Vasquez’s girl from where she sat in the corner. “On whose orders?”

Even glanced at her. “On the order of King Haakon and the British Government.”

Another pause, and Fossbakken burst out laughing.

“King Haakon?” said Vasquez angrily. “This is bullshit. Nice try, Nazi, but it won’t work.”

“The British couldn’t even stop us being fucking invaded!” shouted out Fossbakken. “And the King ran off to London with his tail between his legs, leaving us all here in the shit!”

“Wait, listen!” Mohn, turned to them suddenly. “The King might be in exile in Britain, but he commands the Outer Front’s battleships and planes still. What if it’s true?”

Vasquez laughed at her, but his voice was uncertain. “Come on, Eva? You’re saying the British would send an agent into deepest occupied Norway just for _Isak_?”

“That’s it, I’m going to get the truth out of the little shit right now,” snapped Fossbakken, getting to his feet.

“Wait!” cried Even desperately, “They want Isak because – they think he could help them.”

“Help them how?” said Fossbakken cynically. “Don’t they have enough bomb-makers of their own?”

Even looked at him, choosing his words carefully. “The Allies are rescuing talented scientists to help with the war effort against the Nazis,” he said carefully.

He had decided to be economical with the truth for a reason. Judging from Vasquez’s hostility, he was not likely to give Isak up without a fight. The last thing Even wanted was for him to know the true extent of the value of Isak’s knowledge, and hold Isak to ransom for his own ends. And Even knew that the only way out of this for him was if he could deliver Isak to the British by bargaining his own freedom. “That’s really all I know.”

“But why _Isak_?” rapped out Vasquez. “You’re telling me the British don’t have fucking _scientists_?”

Even shot a glance at Isak, who sat electrified, staring at him. “You’re … not just _any_ scientist. You won every prize in your year in a very – specialist field, and you and your team could have been nominated for the Nobel Prize if war hadn’t broken out.”

Isak reddened, and looked more than a little proud.

“What, Issy?” asked Vaquez, amazed. “Is this true?”

“Oh yeah,” shrugged Isak casually, “my supervisor said something about that, but we got invaded so they couldn’t give any prizes out – ”

“What the fuck, Issy?” gasped Eva. “Nominated for the Nobel Prize?”

“It’s no big deal,” said Isak huffily. “It was just something that I discovered in the laboratory one time – we were separating molecules under a proton lazer, and I thought – what if we took it to its logical extreme and actually split the atom – so I wrote a calculus about it that everyone was talking about for a while – _alright_ Jonas, I don’t know if you _remember_ , but you were holding all those rallies of yours and we were being _bombed_ at the time – ”

“But you might have mentioned it, Isak!” shouted Jonas. “Like between us being invaded and my fucking useless rallies you might actually have remembered to tell your best friend something _that important_!”

Isak curled into himself and looked down at his knees. “I just thought … you had bigger things to worry about than some prize that I didn’t even get.”

“Pffff,” said Fossbakken, shaking his head. “Modest to a fault, our Isak.”

“And this …” said Mohn, “this is why the British want Isak?”

Even nodded. “And the longer Isak stays here, the more likely it is that your group will at some point be discovered. Isak needs to leave – now.”

There was a beat of silence. “We need to discuss this,” said Vasquez, getting abruptly to his feet and making for the trapdoor. “Magnus and Eva, come outside with me. Isak, keep him covered, and don’t fucking untie him. And _you_ – “pointing dangerously at Even – “you better have proof of this lovely little story of yours _pretty fucking fast_ , or it’s all over with you. Understand?”

 

***

 

Left alone in the cellar, Even’s eyes met Isak’s, and saw dawning hope in the green depths. But the small face was still stony and the gun was still trained on his heart.  

“I’m sorry,” he said huskily, a sense of shame stirring in his stomach. For a moment he wished he could tell Isak everything, but his natural caution held him back.  

Isak stared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

Even half-closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “There – there wasn’t time. And when there _was_ time –  I just wanted to get to know you,” he said blurrily, and the room swam suddenly in front of him.

Isak was suddenly very close to him, gazing into his face with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Water,” said Even dizzily, but the next moment the pistol clattered to the floor and Isak leaned in purposefully and kissed him softly on his ruined lips.

Even’s eyes rolled back in his head as he drank Isak in, opening wide to the boy’s mouth as their tongues met, lips softly brushing against each other. Isak’s hands cradled his battered face, his fingers running through Even’s hair, his mouth roaming searchingly over Even’s until Even was almost adrift with sensation. They kissed until they almost had no air to breathe, and the taste of blood in Even’s mouth mingled with the taste of Isak.

“I know you’re not a Nazi,” said Isak, drawing back. “I can just tell.”

“Yeah?” breathed Even, barely able to speak. “How?”

Isak tilted his chin and stared into his eyes. “You’ve got a gentleness to you. The way you look at me. The way you kiss me. No Nazi would do that.”

Even laughed faintly. “You’ve got my blood all over your face,”

Isak smiled back. “Let me clean you up.”

Even closed his eyes as Isak wetted a cloth and gently patted away the worst of the blood and dirt that clung to his face. Whenever he came to a particularly tender place during his ministrations, Even flinched and Isak leaned in and kissed the injury softly. It was the best medicine that Even could ever have received, and when Isak finished, he laid his forehead softly on Even’s for a moment, each breathing in the other’s presence.

“Water,” murmured Even again presently, and Isak giggled. “I’m so sorry,” as he held the dipper to Even’s lips. “I really want to untie you, but Jonas would fucking lynch me.”

Even swallowed the water desperately and repeatedly. “Thank you,” he gasped, trying to shift his cramping wounded leg.

“Is your leg still giving you trouble?” asked Isak. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” muttered Even, face grey with pain. “The wound is still open – it doesn’t seem to be healing.”

Isak bit his lip. “Really? How long’s this been going on?”

“About a month,” confessed Even. Isak sighed. “We’d better take a look at it then,” he said. “Let me roll your trouser leg up.”

“It’s … it’s too high for that,” said Even in sudden embarrassment. “It’s in my thigh.”

Isak merely nodded. “We’ll have to take your trousers off to get to it then. That okay?”

“Uhhh … I’m not sure,” began Even, really hoping that Isak wouldn’t notice the very physical effect that his kisses had just had on him, but Isak’s small fingers were already busy unbuckling his belt. “I’ll be gentle, but you tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop straight away.” As he slowly unbuttoned Even and gently slid his trousers over his hips, he could see the younger boy’s face flush in realisation. 

“Sorry,” whispered Even, without really knowing why he was apologising. “You have that effect on me.”

“Me too,” Isak whispered back, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth, “but I don’t think now is really the time for it, if you know what I mean.”

Despite Isak’s calm professionalism, his hands trembled as his fingers touched Even’s thigh, and gently unwrapped the bandage, whilst Even attempted to calm his excitement and distract himself from the sensation of Isak removing his clothes. That objective was abruptly achieved when Isak had his first sight of Even’s wound, and tutted in consternation. The skin was swollen, almost to bursting, the lips of the wound were an angry red, and a scarlet line had started to creep up the inside of Even’s thigh.

Even’s heart sank at the look on Isak’s face.

“It’s infected,” frowned Isak. “Badly.”

“I know,” said Even, grimacing. “I’ve been putting poultices on it, but they don’t seem to do any good.”

Isak shook his head. “You need proper medicine, otherwise the infection could travel into your veins and – well, you don’t want that to happen.” He looked at Even fiercely. “ _I_ don’t want that to happen.”

“But how?” asked Even. “What do I need?”

“You need antibacterials. What my old lab teacher used to call antibiotics, but nobody outside the science world has really heard of them. Molecules bind to the active replicant in the bacteria so they’re either disabled or neutralised on a molecular level. We were studying active synthesis of antimicrobials back in my uni lab, but we could never work out how to produce them on a large enough scale to supply to doctors before we got invaded. And anyway, I don’t have any here.”

“Okay,” said Even with a wry smile at the boy’s endearing enthusiasm, “so that’s out then. Any other ideas?”

 “So the next best thing is sulphanomides – the drug that’s issued to soldiers in their kit in the form of sulfa powder and tablets. Molecules in the sulphonamides inhibit bacterial growth by working on the enzyme for folate production within the bacterial cell so – okay, I mean, they stop germs being able to function and making wounds infected,” he said embarrassedly, noting Even’s confused look. “That might be the answer.”

Isak got up and went excitedly to his work bench, picking out bottles and tubes from the pile and rolling up his sleeves. Even watched as he sat down and started opening various jars and bottles with clinical precision.

 “And sulpha is a bit easier to produce outside of laboratory conditions – it’s made by the reaction of sulfonyl chloride and ammonia. I made my own batch of sulfonyl chloride, it’s formed by the reaction of sulfur dioxide and chlorine. Loosely speaking, it’s a type of sulphuric acid, but –”

“Sulphuric acid?” asked Even warily. “The bad stuff that’s produced in bombs? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Isak’s face fell abruptly, as if remembering something unpleasant. “Yes. Sulphuric acid is dangerous. But the molecules of sulphur are neither good nor bad; they just _are_. It’s what you do with them that’s important. Sulfonyl choride is distilled to a level far weaker than sulphuric acid; you create the molecular structure of sulphanomides to work only on the bacteria that are in your cells, so it’s not dangerous – well, not to you.”

“So it’s like a tiny war going on in your cells?” asked Even, and Isak gave a short smile. “Yeah. A tiny war is a good way of putting it. Nature is full of wars, on all sorts of different levels, between different types of biochemical reactions. This is just one more.”

“Do you have some of this – sulfa stuff?” asked Even, slightly lost, and Isak shrugged, busy opening and measuring into a test tube. “Well, I’ve got the ingredients here. I’ve been wondering about making it for some time, but there’s never been the need.”

Even watched Isak work, his small hands precise and delicate as he weighed, measured and calibrated the mixture. His forehead creased endearingly as he frowned, muttering to himself from time to time in nerdish enthusiasm. Even really wished that the sight of him in action didn’t make his heart beat quite so fast.

“Okay,” said Isak, finally leaving the bench and kneeling down by Even. “Let’s get this wound healed.”

Gingerly he cleaned and dressed Even’s thigh with boiled water, and then packed the paste that he had just synthesised deep inside the bullet-hole. Even flinched and pulled away at first, but Isak’s care was so tender that all he felt was a mild burning sensation as the injured flesh shuddered against the medicine applied. Gently Isak spread the last of the sulpha around the top of the wound, and dressed it with a clean piece of cotton and a square. Then he leaned forward and kissed it gently.

Even gazed at him, and felt his heart turn over at Isak's affectionate touch. He realised for the first time that he’d been wrong.

At first he’d seen Isak just as his own passport to freedom, as a way that he could escape himself by threatening the British with the loss of their prize.

But Isak seemed, despite his ridiculous cleverness – so innocent, so – _good_ – that Even knew that, whatever the cost to himself, Isak had to escape.

And what was worse, was that Isak seemed so unaware of how his knowledge could be used, that Even feared it would break him when he discovered it.

“By the way, what _is_ your name?” asked Isak softly. “Seeing as we seem to be on first-name terms already?”

Even opened his mouth to reply, but the next moment there was a flurry of movement from above and Vasquez swung himself hurriedly down through the trapdoor, followed by Fossbakken, Mohn and Saetre.

“Issy! No! Get away from him!”

“What? Why?” asked Isak confused.

“Show him, Noora,” said Vasquez viciously. “Show him what you found.”

Saetre took a couple of steps forward holding out a paper in front of her, clear for all to see. Even’s heart sank.

It was a black and white photostat copy of his own SAPO file, his photograph staring unsmilingly out of the corner, the SAPO insignia on his cap and the white flashes on his collar clearly visible.

STATSPOLITET KOMMANDOR EVEN BECH NAESHEIM read the stamp on the file. HIGHEST LEVEL SECURITY CLEARANCE, POSTED: OSLO – UNDERCOVER OPS.

Isak stared at the photograph in abject horror.

Vasquez turned on Even swiftly, whipping out his pistol. He dug the muzzle of the gun between Even’s eyes.

“Too late, Nazi. Say goodnight, Kommandor Even Bech Naesheim!”

And his finger squeezed the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY OKAY I KNOW YOU'RE PROBABLY SCREAMING AT ME RIGHT NOW!
> 
> BUT IT WOULDN'T BE A THRILLER WITHOUT A CLIFFHANGER
> 
> ALL WILL BE REVEALED NEXT CHAPTER - UP SOON!


	14. Numbers Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonas gets even more badass and there's only one person who can save Even ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A “numbers station” is a shortwave radio station broadcasting coded messages addressed to intelligence officers (spies) operating in foreign countries. The first use of numbers stations were during World War 1, and during World War 2 and the Cold War an agent with a radio could access voice links broadcast out of Bletchley Park, the UK’s radio communications hub.
> 
> Before the age of digital radio, analog radio waves could be distorted by a scrambler device so that they could not be decoded, although a signal’s source  could still be triangulated and pinpointed by RDF (radio direction finding) if they transmitted for long enough, so many agents had to keep their communications brief (although I’ve extended this time for a bit for fic purposes hehe).
> 
> Radio jamming is the deliberate blocking or interference with wireless communications so that messages cannot be sent or received. In occupied Europe the Nazis attempted to jam broadcasts to and from the continent from the BBC and other allied stations. Often planes would drop leaflets into occupied countries which taught listeners to construct a “directional loop aerial” that would enable them to hear the stations despite the jamming.
> 
> Authors Note: In reality, communications would generally have been sent by “numbers” – such as Morse Code rather than voice-to-voice transmission – but I thought it would be more interesting to have them actually talking to Sana – though the principle remains the same (so just bear with me on this lmao).

 

“NO, JONAS!” screamed Isak but it was too late. Jonas’s finger snapped down on the trigger, and –

and –

– and the click of the empty gun echoed around the chamber as the firing pin smacked on the empty chamber inside with a _thwack_.

It was a moment before everybody realised that the gun had not been loaded.

The spy dropped his head and let out a strangled cry, realising that he was still alive. He shrank against the wall, his breath coming in shuddering gasps. He suddenly looked very young and very afraid, in direct contrast to the grim photograph on the front of his STAPO file.

STATSPOLITET KOMMANDOR EVEN BECH NAESHEIM.

Isak couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. It couldn’t be – it _couldn’t_ be true. The man who had held him, danced with, kissed him – wasn’t – _couldn’t be_ –

_was!_

– a Nazi.

UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS, read the file stamp, and Isak felt physically sick.

He, Isak, had been the target of the undercover operation. An operation so slick that he had completely believed it. He really had thought that there was something real between him and the man he knew as _Henrik_ , but Henrik was an _actor_ – and a very good one, it seemed. Isak had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. Oh God, what a _fool_ he had been. The floor seemed to drop away from him very fast, and he reeled, holding onto the wall in shock.

Jonas laughed at the spy mockingly. “You thought it would be that easy for you, Nazi? I swear, we’ll know the names of all your cousins and your favourite colour before we’re through.”

The world was suddenly spinning very fast around him. Isak staggered, his legs finally giving way beneath him, and was violently sick.

Jonas walked over to him, stroked his back and held his hair back as he retched. “I’m sorry, Issy. I’m going to sort it out, I promise.”

Isak could barely speak. “Don’t … Jonas, please …”

Jonas’s eyes darkened. “Go upstairs, Issy. You don’t want to see this.”

Isak shook him off, hardly able to bear his touch. The man he _had_ loved was about to kill the man that he loved – and the man that he _loved_ was ... the unthinkable. His entire world had changed within a night. It was too much to bear.

Jonas sighed.

“Honestly, Issy, you can’t watch. I won’t do that to you. Please just go upstairs.”

Noora took Isak’s hand. “Come on, baby. You’ve got your answer. It’s all here, in black and white.”

Haltingly, his feet feeling like lead, Isak trailed after her to the trapdoor. Unwillingly, he turned around to look for the last time at the man’s face, white with fear, crumpled and helpless at Jonas’s feet. The man looked up at Jonas, and Isak saw tears in the blue eyes for the first time.

“Kill me if you must, but let Isak escape. Let him live. I’m begging you.”

“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” said Jonas coldly. “Go upstairs, Issy, please.”

Isak hesitated. The man turned his head and gazed directly at him, appeal stark in his white face, “Yes, Isak, that’s my STAPO file. But it’s because I’m a double agent. I’ve been undercover in the Nazi secret police since the beginning of the war.”

“Wow,” said Magnus, barking with laughter. “That’s some cover story.”

The man shook his head desperately. “You don’t have to believe me, but you’re in terrible danger if you don’t listen to what I say. I’m part of a network of spies in trusted Nazi positions, and we’ve been feeding information back to the King in London.”

Eva tugged at his other hand. “Isak, don’t listen to him.”

“Come on, dude,” said Magnus, climbing up out of the trapdoor and extending a hand down to Isak. “He’s got in your head. Don’t listen to him.”

Isak put a weary hand on the ladder to the trapdoor above. He knew that once he left the cellar, he would never see Henrik – Even – _the Nazi spy_ \- alive again. He started to climb, and, as if divining his thought, the man desperately continued.

“But last month Kommandor Willhelm asked me to find you, for the same reasons as the British, and ever since, they’ve been trailing me everywhere I go. That’s why the club was raided, that’s why they came to search the Red Steps. They’re surrounding you guys, bit by bit. You don’t have much time left. Your only chance is to call my British handlers to help you get out.”

 “Who are they?” asked Jonas calmly. Isak could tell that he didn’t believe a word the man was saying. “These British handlers of yours.”

“Yousef Acar and Sana Bakkoush,” said the man quickly. “I have a dedicated radio channel to their operations team in London. Like I say, kill me if you want, you can kill me straight afterwards if you want to,” and Isak saw the man’s lips tremble, “but at least _talk_ to them first. Save Isak. It’s important. That’s all I care about.”

Isak’s brain was going very, _very_ slowly; the shock had made his thoughts woolly, but something the spy just said suddenly registered with him. He grappled with the thought, but it seemed to slip away from him almost as he had it. _Where_ had he heard – what _was_ that name?

He wavered, suddenly dizzy, and almost fell again. Magnus grasped vainly at him. “Come on, man, or I’ll have to carry you out of there.”

Isak turned, very slowly, and it took all his courage to face the man on the ground. “Did you just say – Sana _Bakkoush_?”

“Yes, Sana Bakkoush,” said the man earnestly. “She’s one of my handlers in London.”

 _That_ was it! Isak turned to Jonas, realisation suddenly breaking through the fog of confusion in his head. “Hang on, Jonas, I – I _know_ Sana!”

“What?” said Jonas in irritated confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I _know_ her! Sana! She was in a lab with me back in UiO!”

Jonas looked back at him in surprise. “What, that Muslim girl? The one you always used to bitch about because you worried she’d get better marks than you?”

“Did she get nominated for the Nobel too?” asked Magnus, but everyone ignored him.

“She was part of the electromagnetics team in the lab,” said Isak in wonder, as it all poured back to him. God, he hadn’t thought about Sana for _ages._ “We were working on different projects, but she left when Hitler invaded North Africa. I always wondered what had become of her.”

“And she never knew what had become of you,” said the man on the floor huskily. “Until I was told to search for you by the Nazis.”

“This is a trap!” snapped Noora. “He’s been doing research on you Isak, he knows _all_ of us, he’s trying to use every little detail from your life to –”

“No, no! Sana is working with the Allies in London,” broke in the man, desperately. “We communicate through a special MI5 numbers station. If you know her, please, please talk to her!”

Isak turned to Jonas, trying to stop the hope suddenly surging through his heart. “Jonas – let’s, let’s _check_ this. I _know_ Sana. I trust her. If she’s really involved with – “ – he didn’t even know _how_ to refer to the man he’d just kissed – “with this _agent_ , then maybe – Jonas, _please,_ let’s try it.”

Jonas looked at him, doubtfully. “Issy. This guy has told us too many lies already.”

“I only lied because I was afraid you’d kill me if you thought I was a Nazi,” said the spy, desperately. “But I don’t have anything to gain any more. Look at my leg. I’m going to die one way or the other.”

“Too fucking right,” said Jonas viciously. “I’m trying to work out which way is best.”

Isak took a deep breath. Logically he knew he should walk out of the cellar and be done with it all. All the evidence was stacked against the man’s story. He should trust his friends – they always had his back – and cut the Nazi agent out of his life and thoughts completely.

But somehow the memory of Sana had triggered something in him; the knowledge of another time, another place, before the nightmare they were living in had all started. Something in him wanted to go back to that place, that place of friendship and – _hope_ , no matter how briefly.

He risked another glance at the spy on the floor. Despite the man’s fear, he couldn’t see any trace of guilt in the man’s expression, no sense of being found out or discovered, just a terrified acceptance of his own death that was staring at him right in the face.

It almost seemed as if – he had given up.

Isak folded his arms determinedly. “I’m not leaving until we check this out.”

Noora snapped. “Isak, it’s obvious bullshit. Do you know how many times we’ve tried to radio the Outer Front? The Germans jam all our signals in and out of Oslo! We’re trapped here, we’re on our own!”

“It’s a secret numbers channel,” said the man quickly. “You know, the coded radio stations. Only I know the sequence. There’s two minutes of static to put off infiltrators before the channel even opens.”

“Convenient,” muttered Jonas grimly.

Isak turned to Noora.

“Can it be done?”

Noora blinked. “Well, you can connect to any radio wave if you have the frequency, of course. But Isak – _look!_ I know you don’t want to believe it, but you _have_ to!”

Isak persisted. “Is there any danger that the Nazis can trace us?”

Noora shrugged. “Not if we use the scrambler and keep it short. Three minutes is the standard radio direction finding time.”

“And two minutes of static before tuning,” said Isak thoughtfully. "That gives us one minute to find out what we need to know."

Jonas had been looking between the spy and Isak all this time. With careful deliberation he pulled out his gun and loaded it, making sure that the spy could see that the gun was now live. He spun the barrel back into position and clicked off the safety catch. “Radio them in,”

“But –” said Noora.

“Radio them in,” repeated Jonas, nuzzling the live, loaded gun into Even’s ear. “And any funny business, I blow his head off _before_ asking questions.”

Unwillingly Noora unpacked the small radio that the Resistance used to listen into the Nazi broadcasts, and spun the dial to the frequency that the spy gave her. As he had said, it was two tense and nailbiting minutes as the spy gave his sequence and before a clear, distinct female voice came over the transmission.

“OK, _Gule Gardiner_ ,” it said irritably. “What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into this time?”

 

***

 

“Sana!” cried Isak, even before the spy could speak. “Sana, it’s me!”

There was a shocked pause, and “Isak?” said Sana, sounding confused and delighted at the same time. “So … so he’s _found_ you then?”

Isak looked over at the spy, still gazing at the floor with the same fearful face, but now tinged with relief. “Yeah, Sana,” he said at length. “He’s found me.”

“Just what is this whole thing about?” snapped Jonas, seizing the transmitter. “Who exactly are you, and what do you want with my comrade?”

Isak could practically hear Sana bristling on the other end of the transmission – she had never been one to be talked down to by a man – but she kept her voice steady with an effort. “I’m working with the British Government and the King-in-Exile in London,” she returned sweetly. “I take it that I’m speaking to Mr. Jonas Vasquez, leader of the Home Front Resistance?”

“You certainly are,” snapped Jonas, “and I don’t appreciate our cowardly king safe abroad sending in a spy to snatch my chief bomb-maker away from me.”

Noora and Magnus exchanged glances and Isak squirmed uncomfortably. He’d always known that Jonas was a republican and held no love for the monarchy – but he couldn’t help but feel that he was going a _little_ bit far this time. “Jonas, listen,” he said urgently, covering the mike with his hand. “Let’s just find out what this whole thing is about.”

“Mr. Vasquez, is my agent there with you?” asked Sana, for the first time sounding a bit worried. “Even Bech Naesheim? May I speak to him?”

“Forget about him. You speak to me,” said Jonas. “You negotiate only with me.”

Isak looked over at the spy, leaning drained against the wall. _Even,_ he thought. _Even Bech Naesheim._ Somehow the name seemed to suit his delicate beauty far more than _Henrik_. As he watched him, Even’s eyes flicked round the chamber hopelessly, and as they met Isak’s, Isak looked away.

 _He doesn’t believe he’ll get out of this,_ thought Isak. _He thinks it’s the end._

Sana changed tack. “Mr. Vasquez, the King is immensely grateful for all you and all the Home Front’s service in the fight against the Nazis.”

“I don’t need any king’s gratitude,” shot back Jonas. “They are my people too, just as much as his.”

“We are all grateful,” said Sana crisply. “Without you, the German efforts inside Oslo would not have been set back to the extent they are. Many hundreds of refugees would not have escaped to Sweden without you. And many hundreds more would already have been sent to the camps.”

“We know this already,” said Jonas bitterly. “Which is why I’m at a loss to understand why you’re taking away the one asset we really have!”

Isak couldn’t help shooting Jonas a shocked glance – did Jonas really think of him as an _asset_ rather than a friend? – but he hoped that Jonas was only playing hardball to get to the bottom of it all. Whatever the truth of it, Sana sounded a little less certain of herself as she continued.

“As you know, Isak is tremendously talented –“

“The Nobel prize!” cheered Magnus from the background.

“I didn’t actually  _win_ , you know Mags,” hissed back Isak.

“ – and we are aware that he is very useful in the Resistance. But in order to free Norway and the rest of Europe from Hitler’s control, it’s vitally important that Isak is safe and extracted to London at the first possible opportunity.”

 “No!” barked Jonas. “If everyone leaves, who will there be left to fight? You ran away, you’re safe now, but we’re still here, alone! Why should we give anything to the British? It’s all because of them we were invaded in the first place! They didn’t lay the mines when they said they would, they didn’t send in enough forces when we were attacked –”

“Jonas, calm down,” said Isak, tugging at his sleeve.

 “Mr. Vasquez, please,” said Sana tiredly. “We need to look at the bigger picture. Isak could be the turning point in this worldwide struggle. We need to work together and not be at each other's throats. He and other scientists could be the key to stopping Hitler taking over the entire world.”

“How?” asked Jonas. “What are you planning to do with him?”

Sana sighed heavily. “We need scientists for … our new weapons programme. If Hitler continues as he is doing, we need all the finest brains in the world to stop him. He has started to build the biggest, most powerful, most dangerous –“

“Minute’s up,” said Noora quickly. “We need to go, or they'll trace us.”

“Cut the transmission,” rapped out Jonas, and Noora wrenched out the wires. Sana’s voice crackled and died mid-sentence.

“Wait, Sana!” cried Isak, but she had gone.

“Upstairs, Isak, we need to talk, _now_ ,” said Jonas murderously, turning on the spy, gun drawn, who flinched away from him as he stormed closer. But Jonas only knelt down next to him, pressed the gun against his chin, and brought his lips next to his ear.

“I wasn’t going to shoot you because you were a Nazi,” said Jonas softly, so softly that only Isak and the spy could hear him. “I was going to shoot you for breaking his heart.”

 

***

 

“What the fuck, Jonas?” Isak hissed as soon as they were upstairs in the cellar. “You didn’t even let me _talk_ to Sana!”

“But it was her, was it?” said Jonas, arms folded, looking at the floor. “It’s true, then?”

“Yes of course it was. I’d know her anywhere. But – what was all that “my most valuable asset” bullshit?”

“Look, Isak,” said Jonas heavily. “We’re all just pawns to them. Those kings out there – playing their games of thrones, ordering men to be killed right left and centre – we don’t mean anything to them. They _left_ us here – on our _own_ for a year – and now they’re only contacting us because we’re suddenly valuable again. You can’t just cave in, you have to play hardball with these people.”

“Okay,” said Isak, “but what – then what do we do?”

Jonas sighed. “I think you should go to London, Issy.”

This was so far outside what Isak had been expecting, that he immediately started to argue. “No! … you said it yourself. You can’t function without me. Nobody can make … _do_ what I do.”

His friend shrugged. “I know, I know, but I’m not going to let it happen without a hard trade. If there's a price on your head, we need to use it. We need weapons, we need supplies, we need agents. If they can get a spy to us in the middle of occupied Norway, then they can get us other things. Otherwise,” he smiled wryly, “the deal’s off.”

“I don’t want to go,” said Isak, beginning to tremble. “I can’t leave you. I can’t leave Noora, and Eva, and Mags...”

Jonas turned to him and put his arms round Isak’s neck, looking deeply into his eyes. “That’s not the real reason I think you should go, Issy. You’re dying here. You said it yourself. You can’t live underground like a rabbit. It’s killing you.”

“Don’t send me away, I won’t do anything like I did again …” Isak started, panicked, but Jonas shook his head. “Your going out was the symptom, not the cause, Issy. You’re unhappy, and you need something new in your life. If you stay here, we could _all_ die, and there’s no good will come of that.”

“But … but …” was all Isak could manage to get out. Jonas pulled him in to a warm, enveloping hug.

"Do it for me, Issy. You're worth more alive to me than dead."

Isak shut his eyes, wrapping his arms tight around his friend, not ever wanting to let him go.

“On the plus side,” Jonas murmured in Isak’s hair, “looks like our friend Henrik isn’t actually a Nazi then. That’s one piece of good news for you, huh?”

“Even. His name’s Even,” corrected Isak, and despite himself, felt a small leap of hope in his heart. He immediately squashed it down again. Even might not be a Nazi, but he was still a British spy – an _agent_ – and he, Isak, had still been the target of an undercover operation. Which meant that none of the things he had said – or _done_ – were real. He had only been wanting to lure Isak out of the city, no doubt wishing to avoid the entanglement and bargaining with the Resistance that they were now in. At what point this _Even Bech Naesheim_ had been going to come clean to him was not clear. All he knew that he had been played by a very skilful operator indeed.

“It’s … it’s not _true_ , though,” he said, his voice small and distant, muffled in Jonas's shoulder. “He wasn’t really interested in _me_. He didn’t _want_ to take me to his farm and live happily ever after by a lake and an apple orchard. All he wanted was to get me out of the country and hand me over to his paymasters.”

“Oh, Issy,” Jonas’s hand stroked the back of his head. “You mean you didn’t see the way he looked at you when he thought I was going to shoot him? You didn’t hear the way he begged me to save _you_ but never once begged for his own life? That’s the _only_ reason I asked Noora to radio in even though we didn’t believe his story. I thought he deserved that, at the very least.”

 

***

 

“Oh my God!” Noora, Magnus and Eva huddled excitedly with them up in the cellar. “Issy’s going to _London_!”

“I’m _not_ going to London,” said Isak, grumpily. Now the initial shock had worn off, he felt even more strung out than he had been. “Stop saying that.”

“But you _can’t_ stay here, Issy,” replied Jonas calmly. “When you were … when you were sick, Eva and I talked. You’ve been under a lot of stress and pressure lately. We think you’d be better off out of Oslo, and if this is the opportunity that presents itself, then ...”

Isak folded his arms and stared sulkily at the floor. He knew that Jonas was right, but he still couldn’t bring himself to abandon his friends, especially now he knew that the one man that he _could_ have left them for … hadn't ever loved him.

_Even Bech Naesheim had just been doing his job._

“Just think about it,” said Eva, as if Isak hadn’t even spoken. “Issy defeating Hitler in an all-stars scientist lineup. How cool is that?”

“How is it going to work?” asked Noora, thoughtfully. “She said something about a “new weapons” programme. Is Issy going to be designing new bombs?”

Isak’s heart fell. “I don’t want to make more bombs,” he said unhappily. “I’ve had enough of killing people.”

“Well maybe they want you to work on missile defence systems,” suggested Eva. “There’s important things you can do for the war effort that protect people, not kill people.”

Jonas snorted. “Issy, this _whole thing_ is about killing people. You think we’ll get through this without killing people? They would have killed Eva, and they still will, if they find us.”

Isak looked at the floor. Having his passport to freedom handed to him on condition that he bought it with the blood of others was _not_ what he wanted. But staying here he was a liability, and he would be doing the same thing anyway. It seemed an impossible choice.

“Maybe I should ask for you all to come with me,” Isak said abruptly, looking at Eva. “If they want me as much as they say, won’t they do anything for me?”

Noora looked at Eva. Eva looked at Jonas.

“I’m not leaving,” said Eva. “Not while Jonas is still here.”

“I’m not leaving either,” said Noora. “Who will look after Eva and Jonas if I go?”

Magnus shuffled his feet. “I wouldn’t leave without Vilde,” he said gruffly. “And she won’t leave her mother, not in a million years.”

“Well I’m _not_ going with … _that man_ ,” said Isak stubbornly. His stomach twisted at the thought of _Even Bech Naesheim_ downstairs, and for one horrible moment he thought he might cry.  

“He’s been asking about you, actually,” put in Noora. “When you guys went upstairs, all he wanted to know was if you were going to be alright, if you were too upset with him.”

“I do actually think he likes you, Iss,” supported Magnus. “Like, I know he’s a spy and all that cool bullshit, but you can be a spy _and_ have a love life, you know? It’s possible to be two things at once, I should know. Everyone thinks I’m just this black-market businessman, but I’m also one hell of a lover,” – he flapped his hands – “with my skilful piano fingers.”

“Argh, ugh,” Isak put his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to fucking _know_ , Mags.”

“All the same,” said Magnus, “it didn’t, uh, sound like he was _pretending_ whilst you were making out and stuff, you know? Like before we all came in and socked him one. I really think he would have wanted to –”

“Stop,” said Isak, “just _stop_. Whatever you think about him now, he’s not who he said he was. Everything he told me … I can’t believe in him anymore. It’s … it’s over.”

Jonas looked at him, long and consideringly, and put his arm around his shoulder.

“Come on,” he said at length. “Let’s go down and talk to him. But,” and he raised a finger. “Let _me_ do the bargaining with his bosses, okay? We might as well get what we want out of these British bastards. They fucking _owe_ us one.”


	15. One Last Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Isak sulks, Even gets a dangerous escape route and Jonas stands up to kings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During the Nazi occupation of Norway, both the British and the Russians helped fund and finance Norwegian resistance groups for sabotage operations such as the Osvald Group and Operation Grouse. Small partisan resistance groups (of which the Vasquez Group are one in this fic) were in comparison very isolated and often lacked resources. 
> 
> The Nazi’s “Uranium Club” was the German programme to make the first atomic weapon of mass destruction (WMD).
> 
> “Tube Alloys” was the name of the British project to make the first atomic WMD. It started early in World War 2, but within a few years it joined forces with America’s WMD “Manhattan Project.”
> 
> Norway and Sweden border trade shipping waters to the south and during World War 2 their shared waters with Denmark (The Strait of Skagerrak) was blockaded by German U-boats (submarines) which often fired at trade ships and caused huge supply shortages.
> 
> Sweden was neutral in World War 2, escaping Norway’s fate of being invaded by the Germans. It continued trading iron ore with Germany and allowed German soldiers to cross its terrain by train. Its waters were considered neutral but often Swedish armed ships would escort German boats. 80,000 Norwegian refugees escaped to Sweden during the course of the war.
> 
>  

 

Even flinched as the heavy trapdoor groaned ajar from above and wearily opened his eyes. Despite his hands still pinioned painfully above his head, he was teetering on the brink of sleep – he knew that he couldn’t hold out much longer without it, but he had no choice. When the Ghost swung himself down into the dug-out, closely followed by the Dark Angel and the rest of the Vasquez Group, he couldn’t help a shudder of fear.

Fossbakken, Saetre and Mohn shot him dirty looks and sat down, arms folded, staring at him. But Isak wasn’t even _looking_ at him, he was studiously avoiding Even’s eyes and sat down with his back to him, leaning against the wall. Vasquez strolled airily past, spinning his gun menacingly around his index finger. 

“Let’s see if your paymasters are as good as their word,” he said darkly. “Otherwise they’ll have one less spy to do their dirty work for them.”

Even breathed out a subdued sigh of relief. Despite his threats, he could see that the Ghost was prepared to negotiate. To be honest it was the only reasonable and logical thing to do in his position. But he hadn’t forgotten the look on Vasquez’s face an hour earlier and the quiet fury that only he had heard.

_I wasn’t going to kill you for being a Nazi._

_I was going to kill you for breaking his heart._

_And I’ve certainly done that_ , thought Even, eyeing Isak’s side profile in despair. The boy remained sitting, head in hands, staring at the floor. He looked downcast and supremely sad, and Even’s heart ached at the sight. Mohn caught his eye and curled her lip savagely at him. Even dropped his head hastily.

 _He doesn’t believe he means anything to me,_ thought Even. _He thinks he’s been played,_ and the thought made his heart sink.

Vasquez ordered Saertre to connect the transmitter set to the frequency they’d used before, and Even couldn’t help marvel at the Resistance’s speed and efficiency. They’d even memorised his codes and Vasquez gave them out fluently in his accented Norwegian, but as the two-minute static subsided to the British headquarters, another, unfamiliar voice came on the line.

“Greetings, Mr. Vasquez,” it said in crystal-cut Oxford tones. “I take it you are calling to tell us what the Resistance want in exchange for your Isak Valtersen?”

Jonas frowned in baffled confusion, evidently disliking the fact that he’d been out-manoeuvred. “Who the hell is this?”

“This is Sir Cecil Dormer, the British Minister to Norway,” said the voice pleasantly. “Let’s make it short, shall we? We don’t have much time.”

“Where’s Sana?” shouted Isak, and Sana’s voice replied awkwardly, echoing as if she were somewhere down a tunnel, “Here. But only Sir Cecil can authorise any mission in Yousef’s absence.”

Irritably, Vasquez listed their demands – help with safe houses, monitoring stations, contact and funding from British agents and better telecommunications equipment. He also asked for two more sleeper-spies – agents of Yousef, in positions of responsibility within Norway – to be dispatched to help the Vasquez Group secretly. "I know the British fund sabotage operations for Norwegian groups up north," he said angrily. "It's time that you guys send us some help too."

Saetre signalled that the minute was almost up. “Sana!” cried Isak suddenly, springing into life. “I want to speak to Sana!”

“I’m here,” said Sana’s voice breathlessly on the other end of the line. “What’s wrong, Isak?”

“I’ll come on one condition,” said Isak firmly. “I’ll help with radio or defence systems or whatever, but I’m not going to make any bombs any more, you understand? I’ve killed enough people – I’m not doing that any more – and if you don’t want me because of it, then I’m not coming. I’ve had it with being the Dark Angel. I don’t want to be a murderer anymore.”

Sana hesitated. Even could practically _hear_ her brain working as she took in Isak’s plea, but immediately Sir Cecil took the microphone. “Thank you Mr. Valtersen, you’ll be of great assistance to us,” he said smoothly. “In your special … _theoretical_ field of calculus and atomic research only. We won’t have you mixing jugs of drain-cleaner or wrapping up home-made bombs here in London, don’t worry.”

Sir Cecil laughed heartily at his own joke, and Saetre cut the transmission mid-chortle. Everyone in the dug-out breathed a concentrated sigh of relief, but Even felt his own heart sinking.

He was the only one present that had met Sir Cecil before – at the War Cabinet meeting during the April storm when Yousef had dragged him out of bed – and he didn’t trust the man an inch.

Even still remembered the way the knight-diplomat had said to the King, _My orders are to take you to Britain – willing or unwilling_ . He knew that the British government would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. Although the King had had little choice but to go to London – it was plain who held all the cards in this particular game of thrones.

Amongst all of them in the cellar, only Even truly understood what Sir Cecil meant by the _theoretical help_ that Isak could provide. _Oh yeah, I wrote a calculus about splitting the atom once_ , Isak had said modestly to his friends, completely unaware that his Nobel-worthy equations really meant the power to unleash a holocaust of fire on millions of people.

From what he had seen of Isak’s sweet nature, such a revelation would break him.

 _But if the Allies don’t make the Bomb,_ said an insistent voice in his head, _then what if the Nazis make it first?_

Principles were all very well if you were alive to have them – but if Hitler got hold of the calculus, then he, Even, would be telling a very different story. The Nazis were killing so many people already, with only bombs and bullets – how many millions more would he kill if he had that ultimate power? It wasn’t a risk anyone could afford to take.

_The sooner Isak is out of occupied Norway the better, whatever sacrifice that means to him or me. Too many people stand to die otherwise._

Even’s thoughts were abruptly cut short when the Ghost knelt down in front of him, a long sharp hunting knife gleaming in one hand. Instinctively he flinched away and Vasquez grinned at him.

“So you’re going to kill me then, are you?” said Even. 

Vasquez raised his heavy eyebrows. “Why on earth would I do that?”

Even looked at the floor. He felt so depressed seeing Isak hurting that he almost didn’t care. “You know why.”

Vasquez raised the knife, and Even cringed helplessly, but the blade simply flashed a couple of times above him and he felt his nerveless hands cut free from the hook where they had been suspended. He pulled them to him, gasping with relief as the blood started to flow back into his fingers. However they were so badly swollen that he could barely move his hands, much less accept the bowl of food that the Ghost was offering him.

“Eat,” said Vasquez, his expression unreadable.

Even blinked in surprise. Behind him he could see the Resistance sharing out bowls of food, and Vasquez held what was evidently his portion – some kind of pitiful stew with unidentifiable meat, a banquet for the average Norwegian citizen in their occupied country. He tried to pick up a rubbery piece of meat without success, but after watching him chase it around his bowl for a while, Vasquez leaned forward and skewered it on the very tip of the knife and offered it to him.

Obediently Even opened his mouth – what the hell could he do if it was poisoned anyway – and chewed at the slippery but-not-absolutely-disgusting meal. After a few mouthfuls he shook his head, indicating he had enough, but Vasquez persisted until he had swallowed almost all of it. “You don’t look like you’ve been starved,” he said aloud, mockingly. “Glad to see STAPO give their officers an easier time of it.”

Even turned his head away, but not before he had glimpsed Isak watching him keenly over Vasquez’s shoulder. As their eyes met, Isak flushed and dropped his gaze, stalking past him and out of the trapdoor. “Go after him, Mags,” Vasquez ordered to Fossbakken. “We don’t want him doing anything stupid.”

“Shall I radio in again, Jonas?” asked Saetre. “They’ll have had enough time to think our demands over by now.”

“No, we’ll make them sweat for a few hours while we get some rest,” said Vasquez. “We don’t want to look too eager by ringing in early like a teenager asking for a date. We’ve got the upper hand, remember?”

Vasquez was _enjoying_ this, Even realised – he was enjoying the payback to the administration who had left him and his friends fighting an isolated war – and despite his mounting panic – _you don’t have much time! get Isak out of here!_ – he couldn’t help but admire the young revolutionary for his absolute refusal to be crushed by kings. The Ghost cast a glance at him scornfully.

“Someone get the Brit bastard a blanket or he’ll keep us up all night.”

As the Resistance spread out blankets and bedded down for a few hours sleep, Fossbakken brought Isak back in and helped station him under the workbench in the corner. From the brief glimpse he got, Even thought that Isak had been crying.

_What else was I supposed to tell you? Oh, I’m a British agent sent to ask you to make the biggest most destructive bomb ever before Hitler does, and by the way, I’ve fallen in love with you?_

Fallen in _love_? Where had _that_ come from all of a sudden?

A shot of adrenalin coursed through him as he suddenly realised his own emotions. It felt such a staggering revelation – and at the same time such a completely natural conclusion – that it made him dizzy.

 _God, if only I didn’t love you,_ he thought, gazing at Isak’s profile. _It would make everything so much easier._

 

***

 

It was almost dawn before Vasquez ordered Saetre to radio in for a series of one-minute conversations with London. Even had slept only a few hours but it was enough to keep him awake and going for a while. He rubbed his exhausted eyes on his sleeve as the British confirmed the agreement of electronic supplies, money and manpower to the Vasquez Group, before they turned their attentions to how exactly Isak was going to get out of Norway.

“We’ve identified the best extraction point to be at 21.21 in two days from Sponvika fijord, near the Norway-Sweden shipping border,” said Sana. “There’s still some essential trade happening in neutral waters, and it would be easy for a submarine to hug the Swedish coastline while still avoiding the German blockade of the straits of Skagerrak. If you can make your way to the outcrop of Sponvika we can cross into Norwegian territorial waters to pick you up. It’ll be tight, but it’s the best chance we have.”

“Sponika is a full two days hike from Oslo,” said Vasquez, calmly. “You up for that, Issy?”

Isak shrugged and muttered something crossly.

“Before we go,” said Sana anxiously. “I would like to speak to my agent. Is he there?”

“Right here,” said Vasquez, poking Even on the shoulder, “tell 'em you're still alive, Brit boy.”

“Sana,” croaked Even, barely able to speak. “Sana, I’m here.”

“Are you okay?” said Sana anxiously. “Are they treating you well?”

Even looked at Vasquez warily. “Um, well, kind of.”

“Listen, I have a message from the King for you,” said Sana. “He sends you his thanks and congratulations on the success of your mission.”

Even bit his lip as he saw Isak hunch further into himself. _If this is success,_ he thought to himself, _I wish I'd failed._

Sana went on. “The King has now authorised a final mission for you. If you complete the mission in time, you will have completed your work in his service.”

“Hang on – so this guy isn’t going with Isak?” asked Vasquez. “What were you planning to do with him? Just _leave_ him here?”

In the shadow of the wall, Even could see Isak prick his ears up.

 “Mr. Bech Naesheim is a valuable agent,” said Sana defensively. “He has access to systems that we don’t. And this last mission – it’s dangerous, but it’s also vital, Even.”

 “What is it?” said Even heavily. At the moment he didn’t feel as if he could even get _up_ , much less take on a new assignment.

“We need to obtain the Nazi report on the Uranium Club,” said Sana. “We need to know how far they’ve got, what capability they have. Otherwise we’re flying blind with our own Tube Alloys programme.”

Even shot a wary glance at the Resistance, but it was clear that the code names for nuclear weapons meant nothing to them. “But where am I going to find this report? I don’t know anyone at the er, the Uranium Club.”

Sana coughed awkwardly. “There will be a copy in Kommandor Willhelm’s office. He is briefed with the latest developments every month. Only you have an excuse to enter his offices, perhaps with an update on your mission to find the Dark Angel.”

Even shook his head. “I – I can’t, Sana, they’re _on_ to me. Everywhere I go, they raid. They don’t trust me, Sana, they’re probably even wondering where I _am_ right now.”

“I know it’s a big ask, but if you can complete this mission,” said Sana earnestly, “the King has requested extraction for you at the earliest possible opportunity. This is your last chance, Even. If you can manage this, it will all be over.”

 

***

 

In the early hours of the morning, the dugout was a hive of activity, but Even’s heart was heavy as he washed his face and tried to prepare himself to be presentable for the outside world. Isak still lay slumped in the corner as Vasquez and Saetre spread out maps and discussed the safest way to get to Sponvika. He looked like he was sleeping but he wasn’t; as Even shot a covert glance at him, he could see the dull flash of Isak’s eyes in the shadow of his hood.

“Come on Issy, eat something,” coaxed Mohn, offering him a small sandwich, but Isak just shook his head and rolled over.

 “We’ll leave at nightfall,” said Vasquez, “Mags, if you can drop us at the western perimeter on your apple delivery run, we’ll do it on foot. It’s too risky to take the access road down South. There’s roadblocks everywhere, and they’ll search the van.”

Even looked at his watch: eight thirty. Just enough time to get to the park and meet Christoffer. His brain was already hatching a plan of action; tell Christoffer that there was urgent news on Valtersen, and request a meeting with Willhelm that evening. Once he was in Willhelm’s offices – well, at the very least it would give Isak and the Ghost enough time to get clear of Oslo. He still felt that this was a hopeless task – but if it could help save Isak, then it would be worth it.

“Well, I guess I’ll be going then,” he said finally, “I’ll see you guys around.”

“I’ll come up with you,” said Vasquez as Even hauled himself to his feet, and prepared to leave. Some of the other members of the Resistance nodded casually at him. “Good bye, man,” said Fossbakken cheerfully. “It’s been interesting getting to know you.”

“Good bye,” said Saetre awkwardly, from where she was packing a small bag of provisions for Isak, and Mohn came forward, thrusting a jumper maternally at Even. “Put this on instead. You can’t walk around looking bloodstained for goodness sake.”

Even complied, looking at Isak lying moodily on the floor.

"Goodbye, Isak," he said tentatively.

Isak ignored his farewell completely.

Vasquez cleared his throat awkwardly. “If you’re walking into the dragon’s den, you’ll need this,” he said, holding out a small snub-nosed revolver for him. “I still can’t believe they’d send one of their men off unarmed.”

“Thanks,” said Even, opening the chamber and checking the six gleaming bullets inside.

 _Enough_ , he thought to himself, _I’ll have enough ammunition_ – _for all of us_.

Even followed Vasquez out of the dug-out and into the shelter of the bombed building above, the emptiness in his heart temporarily overruling any fear at his new and completely impossible mission. 

“Good luck,” said Vasquez, reading his thoughts on his face. “I don’t envy you. That’s one hell of a task you've got there.”

Even shrugged. “It’s my orders, Vasquez. I’m sworn to the King’s service, and I do whatever is needed.”

Vasquez raised his eyebrows. “Call me Jonas.” He put out his hand. “You’re a brave man, Naesheim, I just hope we see you alive at the other end of it all.”

“Goodbye, Jonas,” replied Even as they shook hands. “One thing I’ve been wondering, though. Why are you doing all this? After all, you're not originally Norwegian.”

Jonas grinned. “People ask me that all the time. But this country took me and my parents in when I was a child, gave me a home when my own went to hell. Why wouldn’t I stay and fight for it?”

He spread his arms wide and pulled Even into an unexpected and bone-crushing hug. Even stiffened, before he realised that Jonas was whispering under his breath.

“If you can make it back with that report, I’ll ask for a place on the submarine for you.”

Taken off-guard by the Ghost’s change of attitude towards him, Even swayed on his wounded leg.

“Thank you, but … but _why_ do you care?”

“Because,” muttered Vasquez in his ear. “I’ve known Isak a long time – I bet I still know him better than even _you_ ,” and he grinned pointedly. “And one thing I’d know for sure, is if his heart was truly broken or not.”

Even looked at him, slightly lost for words. “You … you mean…?”

Vasquez shrugged. “He's just sulking. He'll come round. If all else fails, tell him he looks cute when he’s angry.”

“What?” whispered Even, but Vasquez was already climbing back down into the cellar and pulling the trapdoor after him.

"You want to make it up to Isak?" he winked. "Better get yourself to the extraction point in two days."

 

***

 

Even limped up the slope of the Park National a few minutes before nine that morning. It was a misty autumnal day; the trees were laden with dripping dew, and his breath made smoke-trails in the chill air. His hands were still sore and a bit swollen, and he flexed them continually, trying to make them serviceable again. Deep in his pocket he felt the weight of the revolver that Vasquez – no, _Jonas_ – had given him.

The drifting early-morning fog made it hard to see the rendezvous bench from a distance, and he was almost upon Christoffer when he suddenly realised – the newspaper was not being read, but lay face-down on the bench, and his handler was looking the other way smoking a cigarette. In the nick of time Even changed course, walking casually past Christoffer and into the arbors. _Damn_ , he thought. _First-stage meeting aborted._

 _The secondary meet point is at 11am in Oslo Museum,_ Christoffer had said, and with a feeling of foreboding, Even made his way around the top of the park towards the Museum. It was unclear why Christoffer had switched their meeting points, but it could be because, having lost track of him in the raid, Christoffer wanted to make sure that the Resistance were not trailing him.

 _If only you knew, Christoffer,_ thought Even heavily, _if only you knew._

Some of the Oslo Museum buildings had been bombed in the raids, but some still ran a functioning service, and the Antiquities Department was still open. Even wandered warily through the high-ceilinged rooms, looking at the ancient stone statues from Greece, Rome and Norway. Their unblinking stone eyes followed him eerily as he mooched from exhibit to exhibit, taking in the old paintings of battles and conquests; engraved and inlaid hammers, shields and swords from long-lost ages.

 _We’ve always been killing each other,_ he thought sadly, _and then we glorify it. But nothing about war is glorious. It’s only the victors who celebrate._

At the appointed hour he made his way up to the third floor and looked for the cleaning cupboard. _If the cleaning sign is hanging on the toilet door,_ Christoffer had said, _it’s safe to enter._

The sign was on the door and everything around him was eerily silent. Somewhere an age-old instinct was screaming at him;  _It's a trap, it's a trap -_

 _But even if it is a trap_ , he thought to himself wearily, _at least I can buy Isak some time._

Taking a deep breath, and trying to push away the misgivings hounding him, Even walked in slowly. The lights were off, but past the rows of toilet stalls, at the far end, a dark figure was standing relieving itself at the urinal.

“Christoffer?” asked Even uncertainly. “Christoffer, it’s me.”

The figure zipped itself up and turned, and he felt a sudden shock of fear as he realised it was Willhelm, clad in a long dark coat identical to his handler. The STAPO chief was smiling his pale, psychopath’s smile, and the pistol in his hand was pointed directly at Even.

“Lovely to see you after all this time, _Kommandor Bech Naesheim_ ,” he said, in mock imitation of their first meeting. “I hear that our handsome Isak Valtersen has been keeping you busily entertained recently. I do hope I get an invite to the wedding?”

Even’s hand went instantly to his pocket, but in a few bounds Willhelm was on him, knocking Jonas’s revolver from Even’s still-swollen, clumsy fingers and sending it spinning across the floor.

“I think it’s time we had a little catch-up chat,” said Willhelm under his breath, forcing his pistol underneath Even’s jaw. “Just you and I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UHHHHH had some right hassles with ao3 today - it published an earlier version so I updated it - you might wanna re-read just to check, so sorry! TECHNOLOGY I HATE IT


	16. Oslo Mosquito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isak regrets his stubborn pride and finds a useful pushbike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m putting notes at the end today as I don’t want to spoil the surprise! Just rest assured that nothing really bad will happen to our beloved characters this chapter … but hang on to your hats!

“You know,” said Jonas as he climbed down through the trapdoor and back into the dugout, “that Even Bech Naesheim is a bit of a dude, you know.”

From where he lay in the corner, Isak rolled his eyes under his hood but made no comment.

“I agree,” said Magnus from where he sat chewing on the last of their walnuts. “He’s got some balls going off on a new mission after we’d _practically_ beaten him up.”

“He looked cool as a cucumber when he left,” said Noora excitedly. “He looked like Humphrey Bogart or something.”

Isak sat up huffily. “I _know_ what you’re doing here, guys,” he said huffily. “You’re all up his ass, but it wasn’t _you_ he was seducing, it was _me_.”

“He wasn’t _seducing_ you, Issy,” put in Magnus. “He really _wants_ to bang you. I can tell.”

“So you’re some kind of expert now,” bit back Isak. He was starting to feel tense and teary-eyed and –    

oh _God_ what had he _done_?

“Has he really gone? Can you still see him?” he blurted out suddenly.

“Hang on,” Magnus climbed out of the trapdoor swiftly, before returning a minute later with a downcast expression. “Yeah he’s gone, I’m afraid. I couldn’t see him.”

Isak buried his face in his hands. Noora and Eva sat down each side of him, hugging him and stroking his hair.

“I never even checked his leg,” he said, muffled. “I just let him go off without knowing he was OK.”

All the time that Even had been getting ready to go, especially during their final goodbye – every fibre of Isak’s being had wanted to run into his arms. It had taken a superhuman effort to hold himself back – and now he realised it had been wasted effort. All he wanted was to have Even back, to hold him and to see him and to –

 _I’ve really fucked it now_ , he thought to himself miserably. _My stupid pride, and what for? So I can lose the man I love again?_

“It’s okay,” comforted Eva. “Don’t cry, Issy.”

_Fuck. The man I love. Who also happens to be the sexiest, most confident, most gorgeous guy I’ve ever met, and who I’m almost certainly not going to see again._

“He’ll be OK,” said Jonas confidently. “I know he will.”

 

***

 

“He’ll be OK,” said Jonas, for the umpteenth time that afternoon, slapping him on the back. “Don’t fret, Isabel.”

Isak was checking through his small backpack to distract himself during the long hours of waiting before their departure at nightfall. Compass, map, torch, matches, blanket, even a small flare that he had made in case the submarine needed his location in the fjord. He looked up at Jonas and felt a surge of gratefulness. His friend was going to travel with him to get him on the right road; he held an encyclopaedic knowledge of every Nazi station and roadblock within the city.

“Oh my God!” Vilde was knocking on the trapdoor from above; Magnus had fetched her to say their farewells. “Issy! You’re going to London, darling!” She swung herself down into the dug-out, smoothing her nylons with her hands and adjusting her heels which wobbled on the stony floor. “All because that handsome farmer you hooked up with is apparently a British agent, Magnus says! It’s just like a story!”

“Yeah, it seems so,” said Isak, trying to contain the sparks of hope jumping in his heart at any mention of Even.

 _Please come back to me, Even,_ he thought desperately, _please come back._

Vilde had brought a breakfast of apples and fresh cinnamon rolls for them all, and a small medical kit of bandages for Isak. “You guys are going to have to do some serious hiking,” she said, her blue eyes wide and concerned as they hugged each other. “The last thing you want is to get injured on the way.”

Isak thought a moment. Sitting on his workbench was the tube with the last of the sulpha salve that he had dressed Even’s leg with. On an impulse, he spooned the rest of the cream into a small jar and packed in Vilde’s bandages to his backpack.

 _If I see you again,_ he thought to himself desperately. _I’m going to heal you if it’s the last thing I do._

“Issy’s gonna hit London!” chanted Magnus excitedly, brushing at his hair and adjusting his jacket. “Just think of all the jazz bars you can go to! Don’t forget to go to the 100 Club in Oxford Street, and the Palladium in Hammersmith, and the Café de Paris in Piccadilly…”

“You must visit the Tate Gallery,” said Noora earnestly, wiping his face with her handkerchief. “And the Royal Academy, and the National Portrait Gallery. There’s some of the most important art in the world kept in London, you should educate yourself, Issy.”

“Can you visit Karl Marx’s grave?” asked Jonas. “It’s somewhere in North London, I think.”

“I’ll try, guys,” said Isak, struggling to hold back tears. “But they’ll probably have me working in an underground bunker round the clock, you know.”

Eva pulled him to the side confidentially. “Isak, if you – when you make it to London,” – she thrust a small, hand-scribbled letter at him. “Could you deliver this to a synagogue? I know there’s the Bevis Marks synagogue near Leadenhall Market.”

“Of course,” said Isak, tucking it into the pocket of his jacket. “What is it?”

Eva looked down. “If I .. if _we_ don’t make it, I need someone to say _khaddish_ for me. I want someone to remember me. If we don’t see each other again, will you light my _yahrtzeit_ candle for me, Issy?”

Isak almost couldn’t speak. He took her hand. “You … you could come with me, Eva. There’s still time.”

Eva shook her head, glancing over to where Jonas was wiring up the transmitter with Noora. “I can’t leave him, Isak. I can’t.”

Isak put his arms round her and embraced her, murmuring into her hair with a confidence he did not feel. “You’re going to make it, Eva. We’re _all_ going to make it.”

“Quiet everyone. Time for last call to London,” said Jonas, holding up a finger, headphones already on. “This is it.”

Luckily Sana was on the line that morning, who Jonas found a lot easier to talk to than Sir Cecil. She confirmed the meet-point for the British agents who had been despatched to contact the Resistance that afternoon, with their new resources of telecommunications equipment, money and safe-houses. Jonas had big plans for his group; they’d had enough of hiding in cellars; they were about to scale up and hit the big-time world of saboteur operations.

“First we get our agent, _then_ you get Isak,” said Jonas steadfastly. “Isak won’t be leaving for the extraction point until we’re all hooked up with our new kit. So you guys better be on time.”

“We’ll be on time,” said Sana through gritted teeth and Isak bit back a smile. He could tell she absolutely _hated_ being talked down to by Jonas like this, but she had no choice.

“And the last thing,” said Jonas airily, glancing at Isak. “You’re going to allow your Even Bech Naesheim on the submarine with Mr. Valtersen. He’s gone to get your precious report for you, whatever that is, and you’re not going to abandon him here again.”

“ _Jonas_!” hissed Isak. “What are you _doing_?”

“I’m _trying_ to make you happy,” muttered Jonas, “or get you laid at the very least. Shut up now, and let me handle this.”

Sana gasped. “Have you heard from Even? Has he obtained the report?”

“No idea yet, but he’s going to meet you at the extraction point,” said Jonas smiling, “so promise him safe passage, or the deal’s off.”

“He’ll have a place on the submarine, I promise,” said Sana, and Isak’s jaw fell open in delight. “ _Sana!”_ he began, but Noora’s eyes suddenly widened and she waved them to silence, jabbing at the transistor.

“There’s a hum on the line! We’re being tracked!”

“Kill the transmission,” said Jonas crisply, and Noora did so. Sana’s voice abruptly flickered and faded, leaving a stunned silence behind. “What’s the damage?”

“I don’t think they heard anything,” said Noora, fearfully, “but they might have gotten a fix on our signal. The scrambler only distracts the point of transmission – it doesn’t mask it completely.”

“So do they know where we are?” asked Jonas tensely. Noora shrugged.

“I don’t think that we were connected long enough but … with the amount of broadcasts we’ve been doing they can certainly triangulate our approximate position if they have decent enough radio direction-finding, so …”

“We have to go,” said Jonas determinedly. “Everybody out.”

“What _now_? It’s broad daylight!” protested Noora. “What about Eva, and … Isak?”

“Well we’re not staying here to get captured,” said Jonas roundly. “We can’t take the risk. You guys will have to go in Magnus’ van to meet the British agents. I’ll get Issy on the road and I’ll join you later.”

Instantly, the dug-out was a whirl of panic and confusion, with every member packing whatever they could carry, but only minutes later Vilde, on watch, shouted from above. “They’re coming!”

“STAPO van on the road outside!” cried Magnus jumping down from the cellar.

“Shit!” cried Jonas in despair, his self-control suddenly rocked to its core, but Eva remained strangely calm. “Take your guns, everyone,” she said coolly. “Jonas and Isak, you two get out and run as fast as you can. We’ll cover for you and hold them off as long as we can.”

“I’m with you, Eva,” cried Noora, pulling open the boxes that housed the Resistance’s tiny cache of contraband arms: a couple of Gewehr 88 rifles, a Beretta sub-machine gun and three ancient Mauser revolvers. “Run guys, while you have the time.”

Jonas looked between Isak and Eva, torn and agonised in a way Isak had never seen before.

“No, Jonas!” Isak pushed at him. “Stay here. They need you. _Eva_ needs you. She never left _you_ , so you’re not leaving her now.”

Jonas looked wild-eyed at him. “But Issy …”

“Stay!” Isak picked up one of the rifles that Noora was rapidly unpacking and handed it to him. “If anyone can get them out of this, _you_ can. I can go alone. I promise.” He clasped his friend’s face in both of his palms and shook him gently. “Get it together, Jonas. They _need_ you. Don’t fall apart on me now.”

Jonas burst out sobbing and threw his arms around him. “I love you, Issy,” he gasped into Isak’s shoulder. “Stay safe, okay?” He pulled back and looked at Isak for a brief moment.

“Find him. Be happy.”

Isak kissed him, a brief touch of farewell on his friend’s forehead. “I will.”

“Fuck’s sake, run, Isak!” Noora pushed a new magazine of bullets into the Beretta and threw it to Eva to catch. Her face was twisted with fear but her eyes were fixed on Eva with adoration. _She loves her,_ thought Isak with a sudden flash of realisation, _she loves her in the same hopeless way that I loved Jonas_ , and the thought made his heart break.

 _I hope she knows it won’t always be like this,_ he thought, _I hope she lives to see that._

“Come on!” cried Eva, climbing rapidly out of the dug-out, and with one terrified backward glance at his friends, Isak followed.

Eva’s face was set with determination as she snapped the safety catch off the Beretta and lay down, taking aim at the black STAPO van coming up the street.

“Don’t worry, Issy,” she said over her shoulder with a small, awkward smile of farewell. “I won’t let them take us alive.”

 

***

 

Isak sped through the bombed-out ruins, bending low, as the first bullets ripped through the air above him.

Eva and Jonas lay in the shadow of the ruined wall above the dug-out, blazing automatic fire at the advancing STAPO van, and from the other side Noora’s rifle pinged sniper bullets at the dark-uniformed secret police running up the road in a pincer movement. One fell with a cry, and the other STAPO agents dropped flat and returned fire. Behind Noora, Vilde was hastily pulling the pins out of a line of grenades and passing them to Magnus, who knelt up and lobbed them at the van to create a wall of smoke and fire between Isak and his pursuers.

Isak had only one clear way to run, and he took it, dodging and flitting from wall to wall, until the noise of the firing gradually faded behind him; the only sound was the pounding of his heart and the sharp, sobbing gasp of his own breathing.

 _Oh Jonas_ , he thought to himself. _If anyone can get them out of this, you can._

Jonas – Eva – Magnus – Noora – even _Vilde_ – they were doing this for _him_. They were risking their own lives for his freedom. He stopped in the shadow of an overhang, panting for breath, almost sick with horror. The urge to run back to his friends was overwhelming.

 _Find him_ , Jonas had said. _Be happy._

 _I won’t let them take us alive_ , said Eva, with that small, defiant smile on her lips.

An ear-splitting explosion rent the air behind him and a van horn sounded, high and desperate. He jumped and turned around, but beyond a rising cloud of smoke on the horizon, he couldn’t see what had happened. He could only hope Magnus’s sure arm had found its target.

Tears pouring down his face, he pulled his cap further down over his eyes, and ran.

 

***

 

At the outskirts of town, Isak forced himself to stop and walk normally, pushing his trembling fingers into his pockets and staring at the ground. The suburbs seemed unusually busy and people paid him absolutely no attention; vans and carts were being diverted down small roads until a small traffic jam formed around him. He soon found out why. A huge rally in support of Vidkun Quisling, the newly-appointed prime minister and head of the _Nasjonal Samling_ fascist party, was taking place outside the steps of the Gestapo building and all vehicles were being cleared from the centre of town.

Down Haakon VII street and Henrik Ibsen’s Gate, swastikas hung like red and black bunting from lamp post to lamp post, and riot police were stationed at every corner to prevent trouble. Posters advertising the rally were plastered on every wall, but here and there Isak caught a glimpse of a poster bearing his own face and above it the 1,000 _kr_ reward for the capture of the Dark Angel.

 _Fuck_ , he thought. _I’m literally walking into the lion’s den here._

Behind him he heard a surge of shouting, and realised he was already in the path of the approaching rally. Hundreds of Quisling collaborators, dressed in red armbands emblazoned with a swastika were marching towards him bearing signs and placards – QUISLING MAKES PEACE! – NASJONAL SAMLING LOVES NATIONAL SOCIALISM! – the stamp of their feet making the ground shake.

Isak was struck by a sudden memory – _that_ day he had first fallen in love with Jonas, his red shirt flapping on the steps of the university at his ill-fated socialist rally – before the Quisling supporters infiltrated and attacked him for being a refugee.

 _We are not your enemy!_ Jonas had shouted at them. _Your only enemy is fear itself!_

 _Fear won_ , Isak thought, gazing at the approaching march, caught like a rabbit in the headlights. _Fear won, and now they have taken over._

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, and suddenly they were on him, bumping him from all sides as they swept unheeding around him like a flood, raising their arms in Nazi salutes, shouting their hateful slogans. Swallowed up by the march, he had no choice but to stumble forward, trying not to be knocked over and trampled.

Someone grabbed his arm to steady him.

“You all right, mate! Bit crazy today isn’t it!”

“Uh, thanks,” stammered Isak in response, and the man smiled broadly at him, passing him a placard that said QUISLING RULES!

“Here you go! I brought a spare one along, you can have it!”

Isak muttered his thanks, and held the placard up in front of him to mask his face. _Shit_ , he thought, _you couldn’t make this up._

“LONG LIVE QUISLING!” shouted the man who had saved him, jubilantly punching the air. “LONG LIVE HITLER!”

“Long live Quisling!” shouted Isak weakly in return. “Long live …” but he couldn’t bring himself to say _that_ name.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the pavements were lined with stony-faced Norwegians, standing with folded arms gazing with hatred at the exultant collaborators. On each side the STAPO police stood with guns cocked, their backs to the Quisling marchers, scanning the watchers for signs of trouble, as the man they sought marched past right behind them.

 _What the hell, I’m probably safer here than anywhere_ , thought Isak with a strange sense of unreality, and despite the grief and fear still surging inside him, he couldn’t restrain a small smile.

It was the kind of audacious escape that Jonas would have absolutely _loved_.

 

***

 

With banners flying, the parade turned down into the main square, and Isak saw the giant domed roof of the Gestapo Headquarters rising above them. Flags and a huge podium had been set up on the steps for Quisling to address his followers, and excitement at seeing their leader was running high amongst the rally-goers. Many other marchers flooded into the square behind them, and Isak found himself in a press of bodies jostling for position.

 _Okay,_ he thought, _I’m going to have to quietly slip away now,_ and in anticipation he started edging slowly away towards the edge of the crowd.

He hadn’t reckoned on his new Quisling friend taking such a shine to him though. Sensing his departure, the man linked his arm cheerfully through Isak’s and drew him nearer. Isak stiffened, but his companion was unsuspicious and smiling broadly.

“Good turn-out today,” he said conversationally, jerking his head at the marchers. “You from round here?”

“Er, yeah, it’s great,” stammered Isak, eyes lowered, trying his best not to look directly in the man’s face. “I’m … I’m from the south,” he said, with no clear idea of how he was going to finish the sentence.

“Welcome!” The man seized his hand and shook it. “Great to see so many country boys coming up to stand with Quisling. I can’t believe we’re actually going to hear him speak!”

 _I can_ , thought Isak dismally, _I really, really can._

“Hang on, haven’t we met before, somewhere?” The man was suddenly staring at him quizzically. “You look awfully familiar.”

“Uh? No! I just got here this morning,” replied Isak awkwardly, trying to back away.

“No, wait! I never forget a face!” The man held him by his shoulder, brow furrowed, snapping his fingers. “Hang on, let me think. What’s your name?”

“Uhhhh …” stammered Isak, his brain going entirely blank.

The man stared at him in surprise. “You’ve forgotten your own _name_?”

Isak couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. He was so _bad_ at this, he thought angrily, mentally trying to shake himself together, but all that came out of his mouth was a horrified gasp.

The man stepped forward, his face suddenly flashing in recognition. “Oh my God! You’re – you’re him!” He struck his forehead with his palm in an effort to remember. “That guy on all the posters!”

“No,” croaked Isak weakly, finding his voice with an effort “no, it’s weird actually, everyone says that, but – “

“Police!” The man was backing away, waving frantically at a nearby STAPO officer. “Police! Over here!”

But his words were swallowed up in a burst of cheering as the distant figure of Quisling mounted the steps and raised a salute to the crowd. Isak turned to run, but he cannoned into a burly supporter who turned and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Hey! Stop pushing!”

“Grab him!” cried the man, desperately pointing, “he’s –”

“What?” shouted back his captor in confusion. “What’s he done?”

 _Holy Christ_ , thought Isak, struggling ineffectively in the man’s firm grasp, _it’s all up. It’s all up, they’ve got me –_

But his accuser suddenly stiffened, still pointing, his eyes travelling up from Isak’s face and into the sky. His mouth dropped open.

From above there came an angry buzzing, a high-pitched scream that sounded like the swarm of a thousand flies, thickening to an almighty roar as four black dots suddenly descended from the sky and zoomed low over the crowd.

“Raid! Air raid!” someone shouted. “The British are coming!”

All around him the crowd erupted into chaos, and the marchers scattered, running for their lives. Stunned, Isak looked up and saw four Mosquito fighter planes banking above the Gestapo headquarters, hatches opening, their wings flashing in the sun. On each fuselage was clearly printed the cheery red, white and blue roundel of the British Royal Air Force.

“They’re going to bomb!” cried his captor, dropping Isak’s collar abruptly. “Run!”

Four large cylindrical objects with fish-shaped tails dropped from the planes as they soared above the square and an air-raid klaxon sent its high warning scream into the air. A team of soldiers dragged round the huge nozzles of the anti-aircraft guns outside the Gestapo buildings and pointed them high into the sky.

 _Ack ack ack ack ack ack ack_ rattled the guns, sending blinding arcs of tracer fire into the air, but they were too late. The Mosquitos flipped their wings, shot daintily out of range, and the ground shook with a huge _whumph_ moments later. A billowing plume of acrid black smoke started to rise from behind the Gestapo HQ.

 _Run, run now!_ shouted the voice in his head, and Isak shook himself out of his paralysis, taking cover in the screaming crowd which surged in all directions out of the square. As they raced towards the roadblock of the western perimeter, the soldiers at first vainly tried to hold the crowd back by firing into the air, but as the angry buzzing of the Mosquitos roared overhead and released another load of deadly cargo, they abandoned their positions, running here and there and casting themselves down with their arms over their heads.

“Bomb!” they screamed. “Get down!”

Isak threw himself onto the ground just in time. _Whumph, whumph, whumph_! The second, third and fourth bombs hit the perimeter in front of him, shaking the ground like an earthquake. As the echoes subsided, he dragged himself up onto his elbows.

Through the drifting smoke he saw that a huge hole had been blown in the roadblock, and the anti-aircraft gun now pointed sightlessly at the sky. After the first stunned silence, a terrible chorus of screams and moans of the survivors filled the air. One soldier crawled painfully towards Isak, holding up a bloodstained hand.

“Help me,” he cried. “Help – ”

Isak stared at him. His first instinct was to run forward and help the man, even if he _was_ a Nazi, but as he got to his feet, the distant screaming of the Mosquitos filled the air as the planes prepared to deliver their final payload on the devastated city.

 _Find him,_ said Jonas in his ear. _Be happy._

A pushbike, its wheels still spinning, lay upturned on the road where its owner had abandoned it in the chaos. Isak dragged it upright and wheeled it past the moaning soldier and through the roadblock as the sickening _whump whump whump_ of the bombardment began again behind him.

 _Now,_ he thought. _It’s now or never._

Isak was off, pedalling as fast as he could over the juddering ground away from the blazing city, speeding south on the road to Sponvika.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, Isak on his lil’ pushbike! Couldn’t resist that. Will he get to the extraction point in time, and will Even escape the clutches of Willhelm to join him? What's happened to Jonas and the Vasquez Group? Find out soon …!
> 
> The Oslo Mosquito was the name for a real-life series of raids carried out on the Gestapo HQ in Oslo (which stood on the same block as the current-day Ett Bord!) to restore Norwegian faith in the Allies. 
> 
> Unfortunately the HQ was not badly damaged and a large amount of civilian casualties meant that King Haakon was very upset with the Allies, especially as the raid had not been properly authorised with him.
> 
> Khaddish is the Jewish prayer for the souls of the dead, and a yahrzeit candle is lit on the yearly anniversary of a loved one's passing.
> 
> The Quisling rally actually happened, and was bombed by the Mosquitos. I couldn't resist a parallel with the first time that Isak fell in love with Jonas on the rally.


	17. The Uranium Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Major Character Death in this chapter; I’m sorry but it’s war, so nobody dying is unrealistic
> 
> However don’t lose hope – not EVERYTHING is as it seems….
> 
> Even has a showdown with Willhelm and Chris has a redemptive moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real-life Oslo Mosquito raid missed its main target of the Gestapo buildings and blew a hole in the buildings behind (where Ett Bord is now built!). Because of the high rate of civilian casualties, King Haakon was upset with the British as they had not authorised the raid with him properly beforehand

 

“So let me get this straight,” said Willhelm, perched on the edge of his desk in the STAPO office with his gun pointing wickedly at Even. “I send you to track down and capture Oslo’s master bombmaker, and you end up _fucking_ him?”

“I didn’t _fuck_ him,” protested Even, with some truth. “You told me, get close to Valtersen, _you_ said -”

“Oh cut the crap, Naesheim,” snapped the STAPO chief testily. “You’re going to tell me that sucking Valtersen’s face for hours in that jazz club was an act? And then you meet him clandestinely at a brothel and disappear for _days_? Oh yeah, you can look at me all innocent if you want. The only mystery is how you managed to escape our raids, although I’m sure our ingenious Mr. Fossbakken may have had something to do with it.”

Startled at the STAPO chief’s knowledge, Even shot a glance at Christoffer, standing uneasily at the window. Christoffer didn’t meet his eye, and a small vein throbbed in his neck.

“You can’t prove anything,” he said finally, with more confidence than he felt. “This was your gig, Magnusson, your orders. You practially  _told_ me to try to seduce him.”

“Did I?” Willhelm looked indignant. “Did I ever say any such ungodly thing, Christoffer? Did I ever suggest that a respected STAPO officer should indulge in such un-Reich-like behaviour?”

“No sir,” said Christoffer woodenly, staring at the floor. “You never said any such thing.”

 _He’s scared_ , thought Even, _he’s scared of what might come out._

His heart sank. _I was correct at the beginning_ , he thought, _This whole thing was a suicide mission. I was Willhelm’s honey-trap, and I led him straight to Isak._

A knock sounded at the door, and Christoffer, seeming relieved at the interruption, crossed smartly to the door and opened it.

“Come in, Julian,” said Willhelm shortly. “May I introduce our own agent 303, in charge of counter-operations, Mr. Julian Dahl.”

Dahl was a weedy, pink-nosed man with wet blue eyes and limp brown hair. Even stared at him in confusion; although he’d guessed from the police raids that he must have been followed, he had never once spotted his tail. Dahl was indistinguishable from the average man in the street; a plain face, a nondescript expression, completely and utterly forgettable. _An invisible man,_ thought Even wearily, _the perfect spy._

“Apparently Fossbakken punched Julian once at a university rally that Vasquez organised, so he’s taken special pride in trying to hunt them down, haven’t you Julian?”

“Yes,” confirmed Dahl in a weasely monotone. “And I hate that Vasquez, that Jew-loving, fag-loving, nigger-loving prick. I’m looking forward to bringing them all in, sir. Every last one of them.”

A flicker of hatred started in Even’s veins. He had only met Jonas and the Vasquez Group once for a few hours, but he’d formed a strange liking for the man, and to hear Isak’s friends referred to like this made his blood boil.

“Well come on then,” said Willhelm testily. “What’s the latest?”

Dahl brought out a notebook. “After this agent disappeared unexpectedly from the brothel with Valtersen, I started combing through the patterns of radio waves transmitted from Oslo. Some of them appeared to be sent from home-made devices by regular citizens, but I identified a pattern of bursts sent from a demolished area in the northern suburb. These transmissions were all under a minute, and scrambled, and our RDF systems took some time to triangulate them.”

“What the fuck does that all mean?” snapped Willhelm.

“I identified the approximate source of the radio waves, sir,” explained Dahl. “and this morning I staked out the area. At 08.30 I observed this agent emerging from the bombed-out ruins. It’s my belief that the radio bursts were sent from the Vasquez Group hideout, and that Valtersen is there after the agent’s liaison with him.”

“Very good,” said Willhelm beaming. “So we have them all together, you think?”

“Yes sir,” said Dahl. “I’m on my way over there with the van as soon as we finish this briefing.”

Even leapt instantly to his feet, but Willhelm’s sharp elbow slammed into his jaw and threw him against the wall hard. His head whirled and his eyes saw spots. Above him he felt the cold steel of Willhelm’s gun pressed into his neck.

 _Oh God_ , he thought desperately to himself, _they’re going to take Isak, they’re going to take them all –_

“Well, go on, get on with the raid!” sniffed Willhelm to Dahl. “Better not be late this time.”

“It wasn’t my fault, sir,” said Dahl. “I radioed for assistance when I saw them kissing in the club, but the police didn’t arrive for hours. The second time, when they were at the brothel, the police were mistakenly sent to the wrong address.”

“Fucking idiots,” stormed Willhelm. “Whose fault was that, then?”

“I radioed Leutnant Schistad, sir,” said Dahl carefully. “Both alerts were sent to him.”

Willhelm shot an angry glance at Christoffer. “Is this true? What were you playing at, you fuckwit?”

Christoffer shrugged. “The transmissions were unclear,” he said casually. “On the first occasion, Leutnant Dahl did not provide enough details as to the location, and on the second, the address was incorrectly given. I acted as soon as I could.”

“Idiot,” grunted Willhelm. “Well we’ve got them all in one place now, so it’s probably for the best. Go on, get on with it.”

“Very good, sir.” Dahl saluted. “Heil Hitler.”                                         

Christoffer held the door wide for Dahl as he left and closed and locked it behind him. “Well, that’s that,” said Willhelm cheerfully. “Now let’s get down to business.”

The STAPO chief turned and stood in front of him, his gun cocked, and tilted Even’s face up. Slowly he stroked the nozzle of his pistol over Even’s face as gently as a lover, eyes narrowed, tracing the outline of his mouth, easing his lips open.

Even tensed and stiffened, feeling the cold steel slide inside his mouth. He shot a terrified glance over to Christoffer, but his handler was staring studiously at the floor, arms crossed tightly around his body. Willhelm laughed, enjoying his victim’s naked fear.

“Shooting’s too good for you,” said Willhelm breathily. “People like you are a shame on the master-race. Aryans are supposed to breed, fill the world with our genes, not shoot them up some other guy’s ass! You’re going to the camps, Naesheim, with the other pink triangles. You know what’s going to happen to you there?”

He thrust the gun deeper into Even’s mouth, and Even gagged. “Apart from the cold, and the hunger, and the hard labour, you’re going to be the bitch of every guard in the place. For as long as they want, and as hard as they want. And then when you’re all used up, the chimneys will take you. They’ll burn you up and turn you into ash, with all the other scum you’ll meet there, and send you up in smoke.” 

“Sir,” said Christoffer, “sir –”

“Think history will remember you?” Willhelm laughed. “Think they’ll remember Isak Valtersen either? Or this great romance you’re having? The brave things you did? No! When we get our hands on his calculus – we’ll torture it out of him if need be – you’re all going to be scattered to the four winds, wiped from the history books, and no one will even know you _existed,_ you piece of shit.”

“Sir,” said Christoffer, “sir, just stop –”

“Shut up you little faggot,” snapped Willhelm, “You say one more word, and I’ll send you off to the camps there with him. You think I don’t know about you and that little whore Franzi?”

Christoffer flinched in shock as his superior turned on him, leaving Even coughing and gasping as Willhelm roughly pulled his gun away.

“What do you mean, sir?” he asked, stricken.

“Think he cared about you? Don’t fucking make me laugh. Everyone knows about what Franzi got up to. Spread his legs for anyone, he would. How many men did he have? Half the fucking Reich is what I heard – ”

Christoffer’s face was very red and a muscle in his cheek was twitching. Willhelm’s voice rose higher and higher.

“He was a fucking abomination and he brought you down! You’re my friend Christoffer, but you caught his sickness! I can’t let this corrupt you! I tell you, I would have shot his head off myself, stupid little tart. Mincing around in his thigh-high boots, he was a fucking _embarrassment_. He’s better off dead, to be honest, you should consider yourself _fucking_ _lucky,_ personally I’m _delighted_ he’s dead – ”

A thwack, hardly louder than a slap across the face, cut off Willhelm’s rant. Willhelm looked at Christoffer, and then at Even with an expression of sudden amazement. Slowly he looked down at the red, spreading stain blossoming through his shirt, on the left-hand side of his body, straight through his heart.

“You – ” he managed to get out, before he sagged, turned and dropped like a stone on the carpet, and Even saw Christoffer standing behind him, his face blank and twitching, still holding his smoking gun with its silencer on.

Even stared incredulously at the body on the floor, its face upturned and frozen in hate, as white and disdainful in death as any of the ancient Magnusson portraits that lined the walls.

“Oh God,” Chris’s breath was coming in shudders, and his fingers trembled on the gun. “Oh God, what have I done!”

“Chris,” said Even softly. “Chris, it’s okay. Give me the gun.”

His handler shivered violently, staring transfixed at Willhelm’s body. “He _knew_ about me and Franzi. But he said such horrible things. Franzi wasn’t _like_ that. At all.”

“I know,” said Even, as calmly as he could, edging slowly towards Chris. “I’m sure he wasn’t. You loved him, so there must have been good in him, right?”

Gently he leaned over to close his fingers over Christoffer’s revolver.

“Give me the gun, Chris.”

“No, get back!” Christoffer whipped up the gun and pointed it directly at Even, bitter tears leaking from his eyes. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?” said Even, his heart pounding.

“You and Valtersen.” Chris bit his lip. “Is it true?”

Even sighed deeply. “Yes.”

Christoffer swallowed. “Do – do you love him?”

Even felt a huge wave of love and loss break over him at the question.

“Yes,” he said in a small voice. “Yes I do.”

The STAPO officer’s face crumpled. “He killed Franzi,” he wept. “He broke my heart.” He pushed the gun into Even’s face. “I want to break his too.”

“Chris,” said Even, shaking his head slowly, desperately. “Don’t do this.”

Christoffer sobbed, agonised. “I want Valtersen to _know_ what it feels like. To have the man you love taken away forever. I want him to _suffer_.”

His hand wobbled wildly, his finger twitching on the trigger. Even gritted his teeth and tensed himself for the shot, but none came.

 _He can’t because it’s me_ , Even thought suddenly with a flash of realisation. _If it was any other man than me, he’d be dead by now._

“Chris, I know you don’t really want to kill _me_ ,” he said gently, using all his powers of persuasion. “I think you were late sending the police raids to Dahl on my account.”

His handler laughed through his tears. “Figured that out, huh? I didn’t want them to catch you. I _hate_ Valtersen, but I couldn’t let them hurt _you.”_

“Thank you, Chris,” murmured Even, outwardly calm though his heart was racing. “Please, _please_ – let me go.”

“You’re going to go to _him_ , aren’t you?” said Chris miserably. “If I let you go, you’re going to save him.”

Even looked at him pleadingly. “You know the answer to that, Chris. I can’t help it. I’m sorry.”

There was a brief pause, flashes of love and revenge flickering in turn over Christoffer’s face, then the gun fell with a crash to the floor, and Christoffer was suddenly next to him, lips pressing against Even’s in a desperate kiss.

“You changed my life,” he wept. “Nothing was the same since you.”

Even held him gingerly, thunderstruck. He’d known Christoffer was sweet on him, especially since his handler had made a pass at him in the Magnusson suite, but he’d never known before what he had meant to Chris.

“I’m sorry I shot you,” sobbed Chris. “It hurt too much when you said you didn’t want me. I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” said Even, bewildered, patting his back, “it’s okay.”

It wasn’t true – his thigh had started hurting again – but right now there was bigger stuff to worry about, like how he was ever going to make it out of here alive.

The phone on Willhelm’s desk started ringing. _Shit, thought Even, they’re going to want to speak to someone, but Willhelm’s dead and Christoffer’s a mess, oh shit –_

“I’m not ill, am I?” said Chris tearfully, his head dropping onto Even’s shoulder. “I’m not sick, like he said? He said I was corrupted by Franzi, but – ”

“Sssshhh,” soothed Even, rocking him gently. “You’re not sick, Chris. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

 _Fuck,_ he thought. _How am I going to manage this, how am I going to get out,_ but Chris appeared comforted by his words, lying against his chest as peacefully as a child.

“Did I tell you we were at school together?” asked Chris with a small smile. “Me, Willhelm and Valtersen and Eva. Not in the same year, though.”

“Really?” asked Even, casting a desperate glance at the clock. 1.45pm. “You never said.”

Chris nodded. “Wanted to keep it quiet from the Gestapo, didn’t we. Never looks good to have known your enemy, no matter how long ago. I never had any problem with them though, I even asked Eva out on a date once, if you’d believe that.”

Even _really_ couldn’t. “Serious?”

“Yeah.” Christoffer snuggled closer. “I never really understood why we were supposed to hate them so much. Jews. And Willhelm – he never had a problem before. But then all your friends start saying stuff, so you say stuff to fit in, and then all of sudden it’s in the newspaper, _they’re to blame for everything_ , and then your leader is elected saying it, and then, suddenly, it’s fact, and they’re writing it into the school books and making laws against them –

“I kept thinking, _but we knew these people at school, they’re not like that_ , but everyone is so _angry_ , you start lying to yourself, you’re thinking, maybe the reason that life sucks _is_ because of _them_ , even though, really, you know it’s just an excuse. And you don’t speak out to help them, because you think you’ll be the only one, and you’re scared people will turn on you, because of how they turned on others –

“And before you know it, you’re trapped in a machine of hate, and when that machine turns on you –  _homos are a disgrace to the master race_ – there’s no one left to speak up for you. I thought, _if I could only change,_ then perhaps I could fit in, but – ” Chris looked up at Even and gave a shaky smile. “I’m not very good at changing.”

Even squeezed Chris’s shoulder. “I think you have changed, though, Chris. For the better.”

Chris looked at Even for a long moment. “I hope so.” He stepped back and went round to the desk, picking up the shrilling telephone mid-ring.

“Hello? Yes, Leutnant Schistad from STAPO here. Yes, we’re pleased to confirm that we can release Kommandor. Bech Naesheim without charge. The suspicions are baseless. That’s correct. He’ll be coming downstairs shortly with an urgent message to deliver, so please furnish him with a Gestapo motorcycle with full tank of gas, medical kit and a pass for the roadblocks. Heil Hitler.”

He replaced the receiver. “So that’s that,” he said with a small smile. He seemed calmer, more peaceful, as if a huge weight had been lifted off him.

Even looked at him, stunned. “Thank you,” he said shakily. “Thank you, Christoffer.”

“And don’t forget this.” Christoffer reached into Willhelm’s desk and brought out a slim black dossier. STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL, it read. URANIUM CLUB MEMBERS ONLY.

Even had totally forgotten the reason he had come to Willhelm in the first place. Some secret agent _he_ was. He looked at Christoffer in surprise.

“You _knew_? You knew why he wanted Valtersen?”

Christoffer shrugged. “Not officially. But I keep my ears open and it wasn’t that difficult to figure out.”  He jerked his head at Even in farewell. “Go find him. Save him.” His lips twitched, wryly. “Be happy.”

Even turned, stepping over the still-warm body of Willhelm, avoiding the blood pooling around the dead STAPO chief that was rapidly soaking into the carpet. _Goodbye, you murderous fucker_ he thought as he picked Willhelm’s gun from his stiffening fingers.

At the door, he looked back for the last time, but Chris was looking dreamily out of the window, and didn’t seem to realise he was still there. He was smiling to himself and talking lovingly to someone that only he could see.

Even didn’t know who it was, but he thought he could guess.

_Go, go, go! the voice in his head shrieked. Now!_

He was half way down the corridor when he heard the second muffled shot from inside the office, closely followed by the crash of something heavy falling to the floor.

“Goodbye, Chris,” he whispered under his breath, and kept on going.

 

***

 

Even gunned his Gestapo military-issue BMW motorbike frantically around Oslo park, heading to the dug-out, feeling the powerful machine throb and roar beneath him. As he passed the Rathus clock on the corner, the hour chimed two. _Oh God, I’m going to be too late_ , he thought desperately to himself, _Dahl will be there by now_. But there was traffic blocking the circular ahead; some kind of rally outside the Gestapo HQ meant that all the roads had been blocked off.

 _Come on!_ He hit the siren button between his handlebars; a wailing shriek split the air, and the cars ahead of him scattered at the sight of a helmeted Gestapo messenger, swastika flag flying from its pillion post, evidently on urgent business for the Reich.

Even was dressed in a large warm greatcoat and motorcycle leathers, and in one pocket was the roadblock pass and the slim Uranium Club file that Christoffer had given him. In the other pocket lay Willhelm’s Luger pistol, with seven rounds in the chamber.

 _My first bullet will be for Dahl_ , he thought savagely to himself, _that weasely little traitor._

But as he roared with siren flashing through the outskirts of Oslo, the road to the dugout was abruptly blocked by an ambulance and an Oslo police van with a yellow and white rope barrier. Behind it he could see a hive of activity as uniformed police swarmed around the ruins.

“Stop, stay back, sir!” cried one of them, waving politely, evidently afraid to stop a member of the Gestapo about his business. “Danger ahead!”

Even hit the brakes and threw his motorbike to the side. “What’s up?” he shouted in his best German accent. “What’s happening?”

“Been a big explosion here by the looks of it,” the constable explained timidly. He was a member of the regular police, not STAPO, and he seemed frightened to look Even in the face. “We got here after reports of fire, it looks like a whole hidden weapons cache that exploded. There’s also evidence of a gun fight, we’ve found hundreds of spent cartridges. Resistance, probably. Practically blew the whole area up, sir.”

Even looked aghast at the huge, blackened crater of the dugout behind the ropes, stretching as far as he could see like a giant charred wound in the ground. Next to it was the burned-out wreck of Magnus’s small fruit van, with THE BEST APP – only just visible in the remains.

“Was – was anybody hurt?”

“They took the bodies away just now, sir,” said the policeman awkwardly, “there were no survivors.”

The ground rocked underneath him as Even reeled.

_No, no, no, Isak!_

“How many bodies?” gasped Even, and when the man hesitated, he grabbed him and shook him hard. “How many bodies!”

“Five, I think,” stammered the constable. “Yes, five I think, but to be honest sir, they were so badly damaged it was hard to tell who they were; even whether they were women or men, I’m afraid.”

Even released him, and took a step back, breathing heavily. Five. When he had left the Vasquez Group in the dugout they had been five – Jonas, Eva, Noora, Magnus, and Isak. If they had found five bodies – it meant – oh God, he couldn’t bear to think what it meant.

He looked at the devastated remains of the old hideout and tears poured down his cheeks.

The Resistance had known they couldn’t afford to be taken alive.

_Isak, Isak, Isak – I’m sorry. I was too late. I love you._

“Are you okay, sir?” The policeman was looking at him, concerned. “You look like you’re about to faint.”

_Dahl. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you, you traitorous fucker._

“Where’s – where’s the STAPO officer in charge?” Even looked around, vicious anger licking through him. “The STAPO unit. Where is it?”

“Um, there isn’t – well, we saw a STAPO van driving off just as we arrived, sir,” said the man, confusedly, “is that what you mean?”

Even took a step back, swinging wildly between grief and hatred. Dahl had escaped. It was too much. _Find Dahl and kill him!_  – was the thought screaming in his mind.

“Do you know where the van was heading?”

“Out west, I believe. I’m not sure, sir.”

Why would Dahl have driven west and not back to the STAPO headquarters? It didn’t make sense. But it didn’t matter. He would track Dahl down, to the ends of the earth if need be, and he would make him _pay_ for what he had done to Isak and his friends.

But as he pulled his motorbike upright, the sharp corner of the Uranium dossier dug painfully into his ribs, and he stopped.

The report that he carried was the one surviving achievement of the whole mess, and the King needed that report to tell the British how far the Nazis were towards making the most powerful bomb in the world.

A bomb that Isak’s knowledge would no longer help anyone make.

Find Dahl and kill him, or fulfil his mission to the King?

Love and revenge battled for supremacy inside him, just as they had within Christoffer earlier that day, leaving him torn and breathless. He looked at his watch. 2.45. The submarine was due at 21.21 the next day. In a few minutes they would doubtless discover the bodies of Willhelm and Christoffer – if indeed they hadn’t already – and then every policeman in Oslo would be looking for him and the motorbike he drove, and the escape route that Christoffer had given would be closed.

He had only a few minutes to choose.

 _I’m doing this for you, Isak,_ he thought as he kicked his motorcycle into a shattering roar, pulled out the throttle, and took off for the south road towards Sponvika.

He was crying so hard he barely noticed the four Mosquito bombers as they roared overhead en route for Oslo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I KNOW this was a really sad chapter - my baby Chris finally got his redemption - and what's happened to Jonas & co? Stay with it - there's more on this story to come, don't lose hope! 
> 
> Remember: Jonas isn't known as the "Ghost of Oslo" for nothing ...


	18. Another Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a few hours the submarine will be coming - but can Isak and Even survive until then?
> 
> A more reflective chapter after the action-packed last two!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Skagerrak strait of sea between Sweden, Norway and Denmark was blockaded by German battleships during WW2. Five British submarines – the HMS Unity, Thistle, Sterlet, Tarspon and Seal – fought an underwater war, attempting with varied degrees of success – to target battleships and disrupt the blockade to obtain vital ball-bearings from neutral Sweden for the war effort.
> 
> Close to the Norwegian coast is a deep trench of 700 metres in an otherwise shallow sea, which was made use of by the submarines to evade Axis radar-detection. 
> 
> Sweden escaped Norway’s fate of being invaded and occupied. It traded iron ore with Germany for German coal and allowed Nazi arms and soldiers to cross its land to Norway on its railway systems. Later it was discovered that some of the gold in the Riksbank had been looted from Jews in Germany, and that credit had been given to German banks.
> 
> Sweden also offered asylum to an estimated 50,000 Norwegian refugees – comprising Jews, resistance fighters, political dissidents, and those otherwise wanted by the Nazis. Most escaped covertly across the long land border or rowed across the fjord between southern Norway and Sweden using any boat they could lay their hands on. Norwegians living along the border helped the refugees evade the German patrols and became known as 'border pilots'.

 

Isak staggered, footsore, down the ragged track that led to Sponvika fjord as sunset was coming.

He’d pedalled as far and as fast as he could from the conflagration of Oslo, tears drying to icicles on his cheeks, until the air in the bike’s old tires had finally given out and he’d had to throw it in a hedge. Later he’d walked for miles through the night until, at dawn, an old farmer’s cart had come rattling up behind him and offered him a lift.

Sleeping exhausted in the back of the truck, he’d fallen into an uneasy, shifting sleep, in which he dreamed about Jonas, and Eva, and the rest of the Vasquez Group. It seemed that they were walking through the halls of the University of Oslo, laughing and talking like old times, and he was so relieved that he ran towards them, arms outstretched, before he stopped in fear and wonder. Around him the corridors were bombed and shattered, and there was something unreal and insubstantial about his friends, as if they were filmy shadows projected flickering on the ruins of the past.

He waved to them, and called, but they didn’t appear to see or acknowledge him. “Is Even with you?” he cried, but they looked right through him, for all the world as if they were real and he was the ghost.

Waking to the jolt and swing of the farmer’s cart, he found himself sweating and crying, with a hideous terror cramping his stomach.

Where was Even? And what on earth had happened to his friends when he left them behind?

“Sponvika fjord down there,” shouted the farmer from the front with a wink. “Safe journey.”

Isak dashed the water from his eyes. _Hold it together,_ he told himself sternly, _you’re nearly there. There will soon be all the time in the world to grieve._

He pulled on his small backpack, his legs wobbly, staggering slightly from the cold and the lack of food. The farmer shook his hand rather warmer than he’d expected, and insisted on giving him a flask of coffee and a sandwich wrapped in paper from his own lunch. Isak wasn’t to know that earlier in the war Sponvika had been a regular transit point for refugees escaping to Sweden by fishing boat, skiff, and raft; and the farmer had helped many of them in his time.

Sponvika itself was a small town on a sweep next to a shipping port, nestling to the right of a deep-water fjord which cut deep into the mainland. Through the setting sun, he could just make out the misty blur of neutral Sweden on the other side, but the straits between were patrolled by German battleships. He could see the red and black swastikas flying as they combed the waters, and the skies were alive with droning spotter planes.

 _How are we going to do it_? he wondered. _There’s a whole army between us and safety._

He looked at his compass and set the coordinates, searching for the precise extraction point where the submarine would surface. The fjord itself was too exposed to wait there in daylight, so he searched for cover. Half way down he spotted a jumble of built-up stones; a ruined farmer’s croft perhaps, or the remains of a herdsman’s shed, and he made towards it.

Too tired to pay proper attention, he didn’t see the Gestapo motorcycle silhouetted on the top of the hill, but he did hear its angry growl as it kicked into gear and raced after him, bumping over the stony ground. At the first sound of the engine, he threw a terrified glance over his shoulder, crying out in fear at the sight of the swastika pillion soaring towards him.

 _I can’t outrun it_ , he thought, _I can’t_ , before his foot struck a hidden rock and sent him tumbling onto his back against the ruined croft.

Trapped, he watched the figure throw down the bike and stumble down the incline, throwing its coat and helmet away. It was shouting something but its voice blew away on the wind. The last rays of sunshine struck its face, and he saw with a shock of recognition the gleam of blond hair and the way it limped as if it was in pain –

“Even!” he screamed, and the next moment was pelting heedlessly up the grassy slope towards him.  

 

***

 

“Isak!” sobbed Even and Isak’s face was suddenly crushed against the taller man’s chest, arms wound tightly around his neck. He had been moving so fast that Even’s leg gave way and the next moment they were tumbling together, over and over down the slope until they came to an abrupt stop; Isak on top of Even, wrapped up in a tangle of limbs and tears and kisses.

Even looked up at him, clasping Isak’s face with both hands, tears still wet in his blue eyes. “I thought – oh God,” he gasped, “I thought you hadn’t made it.”

“I thought _you_ weren’t going to make it,” murmured Isak, shushing his lover’s sobs with kisses, running his fingers through his soft hair, breathing him in like a drug. “I love you. I’m so sorry I was nasty to you.”   

“I’m so sorry I lied to you,” whispered back Even. “I love you.”

Their lips met, and Isak drank him in, all that tender, heady, indefinable _Even_ -ness. He kissed him as if he would never let him go, losing himself utterly in the sensation of being in Even’s arms, of being held in all the right ways, of being really, truly _held_ –

But something was wrong. Even’s face was grey with pain, and his eyes were unnaturally bright and glittering. He flinched as Isak nestled closer to him and gasped through gritted teeth as he tried to move his leg.

“You’re hurt,” said Isak, realising guiltily. “I’m sorry. Let me see.”

“It’s bad,” said Even softly. “I know it.”

 

***

 

Isak fetched Even’s discarded greatcoat and laid it out in the middle of the ruined cottage, then helped Even limp in, arm thrown heavily over his shoulder. He was shuddering with agony, but desperately trying to put a brave face on it.

“Looks like we finally found a farm after all,” Even said with a shaky smile, glancing around him at the ruins. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead, and despite his bravado his lower lip was quivering.

Isak helped him lie down and gazed at him, warmth filling his stomach and rising like a fire into his chest. _When we get out of this,_ he thought with a shock of realisation _, we’ll get our farm, I promise you. Somewhere with apples, and cows and an open fire just for us. And our own bedroom with a springy mattress, and a lazy cat, and maybe, one day, children –_ and the image was suddenly so strong in front of him he felt he could almost reach out and touch it.

But when he undressed Even and laid eyes on his wound he almost cried out in shock. The skin around the bullet hole was swollen and dark-coloured, almost black, and the wound itself was blistered with sores.

Gangrene.

Isak sat back on his heels, sick to his stomach, and his hand dropped limply from the jar of salve in his pocket.

_Oh God, he thought. I have nothing to fight this with. Sulpha won’t win this war._

Even’s gaze was fixed anxiously on his, trying to read his face, searching for clues. Isak forced himself not to break down or betray the horror he felt. _Not now, not now, not while we’re only a few hours from safety –_

The British sub would have medical care aboard it, he knew, but it was still over twenty-four hours away, and the main element was time. His doctor father had often treated gangrenous wounds in his surgery before the war, and he knew that infection could easily set into the blood within a couple of hours, resulting in high temperature and blood poisoning. He could already see Even starting to shiver, and he’d seen plenty of people in the war fall into unconsciousness or a raving death as the infection consumed them from within.

“Tell me the truth,” whispered Even, his eyes dark and fearful. “Is this – it?”

Isak screwed up all his courage, leaned over and kissed him with fierce determination.

“No,” he said firmly, “this isn’t it.”

He threw his coat over Even and ran to the abandoned motorcycle that he had let fall on the grass. Stupid, they shouldn’t have left it exposed out here; they were meant to be hiding, but they were both tired, so _tired_. He managed to drag it upright after a few failed efforts – it was much too heavy for him – and eventually, bathed in sweat, managed to roll it down the hill and conceal it behind the ruined cottage.

Jonas had often targeted motorcycles as they were easily captured and could prove a valuable acquisition for the Resistance. All Gestapo-issue motorcycles had an internal cache within the front casing designed to carry messages, valuables, and –

Isak’s searching fingers found the small hard-edged box of an SS medical kit. He drew it out and looked at the black cross and the spread-winged eagle on the label with a sensation of relief.

 _I’m going to save you,_ he thought, with stubborn pride. _I’ll save you if it’s the last thing I do._

When he got back into the ruins, wound up with fear and anxiety, Even’s eyes met his with an unspoken question; the very question that Isak didn’t want him to ask.

_How long do I have._

Isak shook his head, forcing himself to be calm, and knelt down beside him.

“Baby, I need you to be very brave,” he murmured, mopping his forehead gently. “I’m going to hurt you very badly I’m afraid, and I need you to be as still as possible. I’m going to try to cut the infection out of the wound – it’s in its early stages – so we can save your leg that way.” He didn’t add, _and your life_ , though the thought was definitely uppermost in both their minds. “Can you do that for me?”

“Okay,” Even breathed back, looking mortally afraid. “Do you think – that will work?”

Isak’s heart swelled so much he could barely breathe. “Of course it will work,” he said as confidently as he could, though secretly he knew the odds were against them. “My father used to do it all the time in his surgery, and I used to help him with dressing wounds sometimes.”

He forbore to mention that he had never tackled anything as bad as _this_ before – and that the experiences were what had driven him towards chemistry, not biology, for his education.

Even nodded, though he still looked wary, and Isak kissed his soft lips over and over again – _I’m here baby, don’t lose hope_ – before he wrapped a stick in a piece of lint and handed it to him. “If it gets too bad – bite on this.”

Patients without anaesthetic often drank whisky to kill the pain, but there wasn’t anything he could give Even right now. He opened the medical kit and laid out his instruments, though his hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold anything. Forcing himself not to look at Even’s frightened face, he went through them rapidly; secataurs, sterilising alcohol, cauterisation sticks, bandages, lint, and a rack of sterilised scalpels. The SS medical kits for their higher-ups were the best in the world. He strapped Even’s leg down to brace it and sterilised the exposed skin for his makeshift field operation. There was only one way through this, and he paused and looked at the man he loved.

“Ready?”

“Don’t tell me that I’m gonna be tied up again,” muttered Even with an attempt at a smile.

“I love you,” replied Isak and set the scalpel to his wound.

Even flinched and threw his head back with a muffled scream. Isak paused, and tears ran down his face.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered, gritted his teeth and set to work.

It was the same as making a bomb; he had to detach all his fear and anxiety from his skilful fingers in order to function. He worked as quickly as possible, first on sterilising the exposed skin, and then on the debridement of the wound, excising and removing the dead tissue and sterilising as he went. Even shuddered, retched, wept and cried out too loudly but Isak forced himself not to listen. The one encouraging discovery he found was that the gangrene had not yet set deep, and under the trauma point the skin still seemed pink and healthy, though blood loss was an issue.

He irrigated the wound with the last of the alcohol and finally dumped on the last of his sulpha paste. It wouldn’t do any harm, at least. The question was whether the infection had already passed into Even’s system, and whether there was a tiny war already being waged inside his bloodstream right now.

By the time he had finished, Even was mercifully unconscious. Isak dressed his wound in the sterile bandages and elevated it. That’ll keep til the submarine gets here, he thought, looked at his watch and groaned.

Still one more day to go.

He washed his hands, threw the bloodstained lint into the fjord and lay down next to Even, covering them both with the coat, cuddling into him to keep him warm, as through the ruined roof above them the dark night opened out and filled the sky with stars.

 

***

 

He felt Even stir and cry out next to him, and instantly he was awake, putting his arms around him. “Are you okay, baby? What’s wrong?”

“It hurts,” moaned Even, biting at his knuckles with the pain. “It feels like it’s on fire.”

Isak checked his temperature with a dropping sensation of dread. His lover’s forehead was clammy and sweating and he complained of a pounding headache. It could be the results of exposure and shock – or it could be the first signs of that deadly giant microbe, _clostridium perfringens,_ the toxin produced by gangrene, attacking his body.

Isak didn’t believe in God, but he had never prayed as hard as he had at that moment.

Was there anything to help in the goddamn _medical_ kit? He searched desperately through it, but all he could find was a small glass vial with a cluster of jelly-starch capsules in it. He peered at them uncertainly; they were labelled _penizillin_ in small black lettering.

Isak felt a small prick of hope. German pharmaceutical companies had been the first in pioneering antimicrobial treatment of wounds. So this had to be the wonder drug called _penicillin_ that he had been so excited about at university.

Sulpha drugs had been mass-produced so that they could be routinely offered to soldiers in wartime, but these new, more powerful antibiotic medicines were still so costly and precious that they weren’t available in great numbers. It would make sense that only the Gestapo and SS would have access to something this important. He glanced over at Even and made a decision.

“Open your mouth, baby. Swallow these.”

He encouraged Even with sips of tea from the farmer’s flask to swallow two of the large capsules; Even gagged and nearly threw up but eventually swallowed. “They taste horrible,” he whispered, shivering.

“Come here,” said Isak, pulling him into his arms. “I’ve got you.”

Even laid his head against Isak’s chest, his teeth chattering so much he could barely speak. Isak wound his arms around him and covered him with the coat, and together they lay looking up at the faint twinkle of the stars far above them.

“Did you know we’re looking at stars that died before we were born?” he asked Even, more as a way to distract him than a real conversation. “Light takes so long to travel from infinite galaxies that the star that emitted them has blown out before we see its starlight.”

“That sounds lonely,” murmured Even into Isak’s chest. “I hate to think about stuff like that.”

“But infinity’s so interesting,” said Isak encouragingly trying his best to keep Even talking and conscious. “Have you heard the new theory about parallel universes?”

Even laughed softly. “You’re such a nerd. What the hell are parallel universes?”

“Well one of my crazy professors was talking about it at college,” said Isak, grinning a little. “It’s the theory that there could be other universes besides this one, where all the choices we’ve made are played out in alternate realities. Where everything that can happen is already happening, and infinite universes reproduce forever, following all the different choices we could have made.”

“Like if we never met?” asked Even curiously, and Isak breathed out with a rush, he didn’t want to imagine a universe like _that_.

“I’m sure in a parallel universe there’s an Isak and an Even lying just as we are now,” he said softly, “but something’s different. Maybe … they’re in bed and there’s yellow curtains on the window.”

“Or maybe they’re in a universe where there isn’t a war on,” said Even wistfully. “Maybe they’re at university a hundred years from now, or in a universe where they’re allowed to get married and invite all their friends.”

Isak’s heart jumped all over the place at the word _married_ and started to beat rather faster than it was before.

“That sounds like an amazing universe,” he murmured. “I don’t even know if it’s possible.”

Even leaned his head on his shoulder, gazed into his eyes.

“So how many Isaks and Evens do you think are lying like this right now?”

Isak smiled and kissed him. “Infinite.”

 

***

 

Isak woke with a jump, to feel that Even was thrashing around jerkily, soaked with sweat and talking to himself. It was past four in the morning, and the sky was still dark. He coaxed Even to swallow two more of the antibiotics – some wonder drug _they_ were, his fever was getting worse by the hour – and held him in his arms to keep him warm, helplessly stroking his damp hair and kissing him over and over.

 _I can’t do anything else_ , he thought desperately. _I’ve done all I can._

Even was murmuring, talking in his sleep in the scattered, fevered way of a high temperature. Isak laid his ear next to his mouth and tried to listen, but his lover was talking nonsense; something about a midnight swim, a pool of blood, and a man called Christoffer.

“It’s okay, Even,” he whispered soothingly, rocking him as gently as he dared. “We’ll be in London soon. Just hang on until then.”

The wounded man stirred and moaned at that. “Don’t go to London, baby,” he muttered. “It’s dangerous.”

Isak kissed him protectively, love and fear battling inside him. His lover was confused and scared; he wasn’t in his right mind. “It’s okay, Even, we’ll be safe there, I promise.”

He threw a despairing glance up at the softly lightening sky. _The sun will be up soon_ , he thought, _we’ve got to make it through one more day; be safe for one more day, that’s all –_

Even’s eyes flew open and he clawed at Isak with delirious fear. “No! Cecil wants it, he’s going to take it, don’t trust him.”

Isak rolled onto one elbow and tried to soothe his lover. “What are you talking about, Even?”

Even groaned, beating at his head with the ball of his fist deliriously. “I want to tell you the truth. Willhelm wanted it, and Christoffer shot him, and you have it, and they want it, be _careful_.”

“What?” said Isak, confused. “What did they want?”

“We’re going to the Uranium Club,” said Even excitedly. “Five bodies, not six, don’t you see? But if you go to London there will be millions of bodies – Millions! You’re going to kill so many people, Isak, you really will be the Dark Angel!” He gasped for breath, laughing manically. “You and the Ghost of Oslo! That’s the truth!”

Isak looked at him despairingly. The infection was spreading and he was powerless to stop it. He couldn’t bear to sit by while it took over Even’s body and brain. He took his face in his hands and rested their foreheads together.

“Stay with me, baby,” he muttered against Even’s mouth. “Just take it minute by minute,”

“So many minutes. So many bodies. What do we do in this minute?” worried Even.

Isak leaned forward and pressed their lips together. “We kiss.”

After a minute Even grew calmer. When Isak pulled away, his lover sighed deeply, then turned his empty, burning gaze over Isak’s shoulder and smiled, as if looking at someone that Isak couldn’t see.

“So I guess you got your revenge anyway, Christoffer,” he said, or something like that, and then he started laughing weakly as if it didn’t matter, as if _nothing_ mattered, until his eyelids fluttered and he slipped back into sleep again.

 

***

 

Isak sat, his knees drawn up to his chest, thinking.

The Uranium Club.

Sana had mentioned it, and Even had risked his life to go and get the report so it must be very valuable to the Allies. The silver-voiced British agent at the other end of the transmitter had been very eager to hear Jonas’ terms, and had provided the Ghost with all his requests without even arguing.

 _Oh God, Jonas._ Isak rubbed his eyes. _Please Jonas, he thought, you were the only one who could get them out alive. Please don’t be dead._

But there was no way he could know his friends’ fate right now, so to avoid the madness of despair he forced himself to think about something else that had been bothering him. There had been something odd about Sir Cecil’s alacrity to negotiate Isak’s leaving the country. And flattered though Isak was about the Nobel Prize nomination – it was after all a _team_ prize, there were older and more experienced scientists in the team that had been nominated with him – it seemed odd that he himself had been singled out for rescue.

For _him_ , a young university researcher? To help them in a _theoretical_ sense, Sir Cecil had said?

Isak was young, but he wasn’t _stupid._

His own work had been more on the chemical structure of uranium – what could be built from it, rather than what could be destroyed. But the buzz at university had all been about the discovery of uranium's ability to break apart into lighter elements and release _energy_ ; valuable energy a million times more powerful than the coal and wood they’d always relied on, energy that could revolutionise the world by powering factories, lighting up whole towns and cities with cleaner, cheaper, quicker electricity than the old incandescent bulbs, driving ships and trains, helping build roads and towns in areas where people still clung to life as if it were medieval times. Energy that was capable of blasting rockets into space to explore the planets, which ten years before had been an impossible dream.

The big question at Isak’s university, and many universities across Europe at that time – had been exactly _how_ to release that energy easily and safely.

Isak’s own calculus how to split the atom had been theoretical – this wasn’t his main area of interest after all – but something told him that this huge power was what the Allies were after.

 _Molecules aren’t good or bad_ , he had said to Even in the dugout, earnestly mixing the sulpha compound. _It’s what you do with them that counts._

And the same went for knowledge; knowledge was neither good nor bad, it’s what you did with it that counted.

 _You’ll kill so many people Isak, you really will be the Dark Angel,_ Even had said in his delirium. _I want to tell you the truth!_

He cast a glance at where Even was lying unconscious, chest rising and falling painfully as he breathed. Nothing he could do now for the fight being waged in his lover’s bloodstream; just one more tiny war in a world full of conflict between man and his surroundings, and yet the only war for Isak that mattered right now.

Biting his lip, he drew out the slim, hard file that he had found in Even’s greatcoat pocket, and looked at the title again.

URANIUM CLUB MEMBERS ONLY.

He opened the file in the dawning light of the day, and began to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, right?! It was sooo easy to die from a wound back then... fingers crossed for the next few hours!!


	19. You Look Cute When You're Grumpy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The submarine is here, and Isak has a very difficult decision to make - but Even's standing in his way.
> 
> No spy story would be complete without a very British baddie!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The offence of “treason” – betraying one’s country, usually by killing one’s king or plotting the overthrow of one's royal family – was punishable by death in most countries up to around 20 years ago. During wartime in many countries the offence of “treachery” was established to prosecute enemy spies or collaborators who sided with the Nazis, or those seen to have assisted or advanced the Nazi regime in any way at the expense of their own nation. After WW2, many people in Norway were executed under these laws, fairly or otherwise, by hanging or firing squad.  
> 
> During the war, Sweden gave asylum to 50,000 refugees from Norway and nearly all Denmark’s 8,000 Jews. However it was hard to get exit visas from Sweden to travel to other safe countries, and the Swedish economy was hard hit by war so arrivals had to live in refugee camps in Öreryd and Kjesäter.

 

Even woke, and instantly regretted it. His body felt like it had been dragged under a Panzer tank, mashed up and spat out the other side. All down his thigh ran a burning ache, and his limbs felt weak and jittery. The one improvement was that the pounding headache which had been at the point of splitting his mind apart had magically evaporated, and he no longer felt so desperately feverish and hot.

“Isak,” he murmured, trying not to open his eyes. “Isak.”

But there was no answer. What time was it? It felt late; although he lay in shadow, the sun’s rays felt late afternoon; he must have slept the whole night and day away. Squinting a little in the dying sun, he pulled himself cautiously up onto his elbows, and felt his leg groan with the pain. But the skin around the wound no longer felt tight to bursting, and the sickening tenderness had receded. He was weak; weak as a shell, but for the first time in a long while he felt the beginnings of hope again.

“Isak?” he called, a little louder, but there was no answer.

Even felt suddenly fearful. Isak wouldn’t just go off and leave him like that. Had something happened to him? In which case why wouldn’t he, Even, have been taken too? It wasn’t like Isak at all.

Could he move? Gingerly he rolled onto his side, gasping with the pain, and dragged himself to a standing position. All his body cried out to him not to move, to stay _still still still_ until the healing had begun, but anxiety was starting to set in. By Even’s reckoning, the British submarine would already be starting its descent into the perilous ocean trench, its sonar allowing it to navigate through the narrow rocky channel – sometimes only fifty metres wide – but safe out of sight of the German _Kriegsmarine_ circling the waters above.

 _We’ll soon be in London, Isak,_ he thought to himself, but the thought triggered a sudden memory; the Uranium Club report. He closed his eyes and rubbed at them with the back of his hand, trying to recall the lost hours of the night before.

Scraps of horror – _the operation, oh God_ \- started to trickle back to him, and hallucinations; in the fever he had been running, running, his hand in Isak’s, away from a burning Oslo in flames, where Christoffer still stood like a statue in a lake of blood, gun upraised to his head, and he’d been shouting to Isak, trying to warn him, warn him about Cecil –

– oh God, what had he _said_?

He felt in the inside pocket of the greatcoat in sudden panic, and felt the slim spine of the Uranium Club report still where he had left it, and relaxed slightly.  

 _Thank you Christoffer_ , he thought sadly. _I owe you everything._

Through the ruined wall, he could see light fading across the water. It must be nearly four o’clock, and extraction by the submarine would not be until 21.21. For the first time he felt desperately hungry – he hadn’t eaten for at least forty-eight hours since the Ghost fed him with the blade of his knife – and his body stuttered and shivered with the effort of moving. Holding onto the wall, he tried to see through cracks in the stones, his anxiety mounting.

Isak hadn’t gone off and _left_ him, had he?

As if to answer his fears, there was a low murmur of voices from outside the ruins, and the next moment a couple of shadowy figures ducked in through the remains of the doorway. Even jumped and stumbled, fumbling for William’s revolver in his pocket, but the next moment Isak was suddenly in front of him, holding his hands up in surrender, his eyes wide and concerned.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! Even! It’s me!”

“Oh,” Even sagged, feeling as if he was about to faint, and then Isak was there holding him before he could fall, while the gun fell useless to the floor. 

“What the hell are you doing up? Sit down!”

“I worried – I thought – ” was all that Even could get out, before Isak was gently manhandling him back down. “How are you feeling? Let me check you.”

Even lay down, exhausted, feeling the soft touch of Isak’s hands all over his face, assessing his vital signs, the dilation of his pupils and his temperature.

“Your fever’s gone down, that’s good. I won’t undress your wound for the moment, but does it feel all right?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t make me feel sick like it did. Hurts like a bitch, though. You’ll make a good doctor someday if you get enough practice.” Even smiled but Isak merely nodded. He was all concern and attention, but Even noticed that he didn’t meet his eyes once during the examination.

“Is – Is everything all right?” he asked anxiously.

“Sssshhh,” said Isak, still monitoring his pulse. “Be quiet and rest. I’ve got food for you.”

The second man was still loitering at the door; an old farmer carrying a canister, which he opened and gestured to Even to eat. It smelled like chicken soup, and the aroma made him both starving hungry and bilious in equal measure. Isak held up the canister to his mouth and Even took a few feeble sips.

“He’s sick,” said the old man curtly. “He needs medicine.”

“We’ve got medicine,” rejoined Isak, coaxing Even to swallow a couple of fat, jelly-like capsules from a small bottle he held, in between sips of soup. “He’s going to be just fine.”

“I think he will die,” said the old man disinterestedly, and Even looked sharply at Isak. “Don’t listen to him,” muttered Isak. “He’s pretty grumpy, but the tablets you’re taking are fighting the infection, don’t worry.”

“Who is he?” whispered Even in Isak’s ear. “What’s he doing here?”

“This is Jakob. He gave me a lift on the way down,” replied Isak, “and after I cleaned your wound up, I went to beg some food. Seems like he owns the nearest farm.”

“Can we trust him?” muttered Even. “We don’t know him at all.”

Isak nodded. “He’s a border pilot. Lots of people have come this way. He knows all the routes to Sweden.”

Even recognised the war slang _border-pilot_ – local Norwegians living by the Swedish boundary who helped guide refugees across to safety. “I hope you haven’t told him what we’re actually waiting for,” he replied softly.

“Of course not.” Isak finished pressing the last of the soup on Even and turned away abruptly. “You should sleep now.”

Even opened his mouth to protest, but it was too much for him. The warmth of the soup and the new dose of antibiotics hit him like a blast of morphine, and without warning sleep overcame him.

 

***

 

He woke to darkness and the sound of Isak moving around next to him; he could hear the rustling of blankets and the snap of a Zippo lighter. By the small flame he could see Isak packing his bag, two small points of light reflected in his dark pupils like a cat. He relaxed as he realised the strange Norwegian farmer who brought the soup had disappeared.

“What time is it?” he asked sleepily.

“Eight thirty. How’s the leg?” said Isak quietly, and Even’s heart sank.

Isak was _definitely_ not looking at him.

His wound still hurt terribly, but he could feel his strength slowly returning. He thought he would have ability enough to limp down to the extraction point, but no more. “If I can lean on you, I can make it I think,” he said softly, reaching out his hand to rest it on Isak’s. “Thank you, by the way, for everything you did last night. I know it can’t have been easy for you either.”

Isak jumped – no, _flinched_ – at the contact, and sat frozen, looking down at his zipped-up bag. “Don’t be silly,” he said hollowly. “You’re getting better. That’s all that matters.”

Even’s alarm intensified. The last time Isak had acted like this was in the dug-out when he’d been upset that Even wasn’t who he said he was. “Isak – I love you,” he said tentatively, and was horribly, painfully aware of just how needy he sounded.

His lover nodded slowly, caressed Even’s hand gently before withdrawing his own.

“We need to go,” he whispered, and he still didn’t meet Even’s gaze. “It’s time.”

Outside the ruined hut, a faint moon scudded in and out of clouds; a good night for fugitives, providing them with plenty of shadow. Its glow reflected off the distant sea-channel where the large German warships patrolled watchfully, within range of the huge anti-aircraft guns situated protectively two miles away the other side of Sponvika. Now and then a low drone came from above from invisibly-cruising German planes; Even recognised the throbbing staccato of a Messerschmitt, and sometimes the steadier, higher whine of a Heinkel seaplane.

 _If this escape comes off_ , thought Even unsteadily, _I have to hand it to the British, they’ve got nerve._

Dressed in dark clothes without a guiding light, their creeping forms were invisible to any watching eye, but they moved slowly and carefully nonetheless, scanning each metre carefully before they moved. Still, the stony slope along the fjord was an utter nightmare for Even. The slippery grass and the unexpected jolts of the small hollows and craters made walking tense and painful. He limped with one arm flung heavily around Isak’s shoulder and could feel the younger man struggling with his weight.

“I’m sorry,” he got out as best he could through his teeth clenched with pain. “I’m sorry I’m such a burden.”

“You’re not a burden,” Isak whispered, but he _still_ didn’t look at him, even when they stumbled thankfully onto their pick-up point of Kjeoye; a dark mountainous peninsula just west of Sponvika that overhung the open sea. Even caught his breath at the sight.

In front of them sprawled the flat wash of the easterly part of the Oslofjord, lit dully to a lake of silver by the fitful moonlight. A salt tang of fish cut at their nostrils and the roar and crash of the waves boomed around them. Underneath these waters, the deep Norwegian trench ran, but for the very last part of its journey to them the submarine would be exposed.

Time was of the very essence for the rescue.

Isak took out the compass and squinted at it in the dim light.

“We’re here. Two minutes to go. Now let’s see if the British are as punctual as everybody says.”

Even felt for his hand in the dark and held it.

“Isak,” he said huskily. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

Isak finally raised his head to look at him, and Even saw with disbelief the glint of tears in his eyes.

“Goodbye,  _kjæreste_ ,” he whispered, leaning over to press his warm lips against Even’s cheek.

Even felt his heart go cold. “Isak. What do you mean?”

Isak bit his lip, and his small face looked very stubborn and determined. “I’m not coming.”

“Not … what? Isak!” Even grasped at him in consternation. “What are you _saying_?”

“I _know_ , Even. I read the Uranium Club report.” Isak drew back and looked at him soberly. “You’re getting on that submarine but – I can’t.”

Even’s head was whirling. “But Isak – _please_ – you can’t stay, you have to come, you _have_ to.”

His lover folded his arms mutinously. “I’m not going to be a pawn any longer. I won’t do what they want me for. I’m done with killing, I’m done with death. Take the report to them, let them build the bomb if that’s what they want, but it won’t be in my name.”

Chokingly, Even pulled him closer. “But they’ll catch you, baby, you can’t stay here – ”

Isak shook his head. “I’m not staying here. I’ve been talking with Jakob, and he’s going to guide me to Sweden. I’ve got distant cousins there. I haven’t talked to them in years, but – .”

“To _Sweden_?” Even’s heart dropped. Sweden was neutral, yes, but the dangers involved in getting there were horrific; they’d heard tales of people gunned down at the border and left to rot; refugees herded into overcrowded camps and the networks of Nazi spies that operated there. “Isak, please, no - !”

But Isak was looking over his shoulder, eyes wide and glassy in the dim reflected moonlight.

“It’s _here_ ,” he murmured, and Even turned to see a dark metal fin breaking the pale surface of the fjord. A low mechanical hum sounded through the air and suddenly in front of them the sea erupted into a boiling wash, white foam pouring from the sides of the black submarine that rose up before them. On its prow was emblazoned HMS UNITY.

“I’m not going without you!” Even pulled at him but his hold was weak, and Isak threw him off easily, his eyes dark with anger.

“Just get on the _fucking_ submarine, Even! You need medical treatment, you need to give the British their precious report. Just _go_!”

“I can’t. I can’t leave you,” shouted back Even. “I won’t go without you. I _love_ you.”

Isak looked at him furiously, chest heaving. “ _Love_ me? You don’t know me! We don’t even know each _other_! This is just a wartime romance, Even, just a fucking stupid _fling!_ ”

Even’s breath felt like fire in his chest. “Stop it. You don’t know that!”

A low call sounded over the water. From the hatch above the submarine, a Special Services rubber boat equipped with an outboard motor was launched into the shallower sea. They heard the faint _put-put-put_ as it made its way towards them, spray bursting off its prow. 

Isak caught his breath in a sob. “You know as well as I do there’s no future in this relationship. If we’re caught – by either side – we’re going to prison. There’s no place for people like us, Even. Not in this universe, anyway.”

“ _Gule Gardiner!_ Come down to the shore! Get ready!”

In the approaching motor-boat, Even could see a seaman busy at the tiller, and standing up, clad in oilskins, the tall figure of Sir Cecil, holding a searchlight and scanning the darkened shore through binoculars. Isak glanced over his shoulder and spoke rapidly.

“Face it, Even, there’s nothing between us anymore. We had our time, but let’s just forget it ever happened.”

“You called me  _kjæreste_ ,” replied Even, the ache in his heart overwhelming any physical pain he was feeling right now. “I don’t have a life if it’s not with you.”

“ _Gule Gardiner!_ ” Cecil’s voice was very close now. “Come down to the shore!”

The wandering searchlight swept over them, circled then trained on them; Even raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare. Isak stared at him, his face hard.

“Well whatever we had, it’s over now. Get used to it.”

Even grabbed his hand. “How will you know it’s over if you don’t even try? I just want _time_ with you, Isak, that’s all I want.”

Isak hesitated a moment, his fingers trembling in Even’s, before he pulled away. “No. It’s over.”

He whirled around and stalked off into the darkness, leaving Even standing crushed and paralysed as the boat stuttered alongside in the shallow wash, Cecil’s glinting binocular lenses sweeping frantically from side to side.

“Where’s he going?” shouted Cecil as he spied Even standing alone. “Where’s Valtersen?”

“I’m not coming!” shouted Isak from the shadow of the cliff. “You’re taking Even, but not me.”

“Won’t _come_? You don’t have a choice!” Cecil’s moustache was bristling now, and he gave a barked-out command to the Marine seaman to dock. “Get aboard!”

“I’m not coming, because I won’t murder people anymore!” shouted back Isak. “Build your own bomb! I won’t play your war games!”

“War games? You think this is a _game_!” Cecil was furious now, and with a quick word to the Marine guiding the boat, he put one foot on the rock next to Even. “This is a matter of life or death!” Reaching into his coat he pulled out a Colt pistol and trained it on Isak.

“Get back here, Valtersen, or I’ll shoot!”

“No!” shouted Isak, starting to run up the slope. “I’m not going to murder millions of people for you!”

Cecil narrowed his eyes and flicked off the safety catch. “If you don’t, the Nazis will! You want the Reich to take over the world? Because they will, you know! And where will all your pretty little principles and your conscientious objection be then? Dead! Along with your family and your friends and your country, along with everything that ever raised you!”

Isak checked his step, hesitated and looked back.

“You’ve got five seconds!” shouted Cecil. “Five – !”

“Four!

“Three ..!

“Two - !”

Cecil aimed the gun at Isak’s knee.

Even didn’t know how it happened – sometimes his brain went too fast under pressure to really register what was going on – but he pulled his fist back and punched Cecil hard in the face. His knuckles connected with the diplomat’s nose, knocking him sideways and back into the boat. The gun flew into the water with a splash. He didn’t even properly realise what he had done until an incandescent Cecil gazed up at him, bloodied hand to his face.

“What are you doing!”

Even raised the Uranium Club report and threw it into the boat with a surge of anger, remembering Cecil's high-handed treatment of the King just before his escape. “Take your report! You’re not having Isak or me!”

“This is treachery, Naesheim! Treachery!” Cecil roared furiously, but at that moment the sky above them suddenly exploded into a rush of noise; the distinctive _roff-roff-roff_ of a squadron of Junker planes, cutting across the moonlit sky like a flock of bats.  

“Sir! Air attack! Back to the sub!” shouted the Marine frantically, wrenching round the tiller and firing up the outboard motor.

“Traitor!” screamed Cecil one last time, over his shoulder. “You’d better pray the Nazis win for a quick death, because if we get our hands on you, Naesheim, you’ll _hang_ for this! You _and_ Valtersen!”

And the boat was off, scudding across the surface of the waves even as the Junkers spotted the submarine and amassed an attacking formation. Even had time enough to see the Marine dinghy reaching the hatch and the angular form of Cecil being pulled aboard, before the roar of the plane engines changed into the tell-tale, high-pitched scream of a dive-bomber zeroing in on their target.

White explosions peppered the surface of the water and the submarine closed its hatch and sank like a stone, just as the first Junker swooped above the now-empty expanse of water and unleashed its bombs. A great plume of white water illuminated the sky with a roar and a hiss, followed by a barrage of others dropped from the attacking planes.

Even wondered whether the sub could escaped the effects of the huge underwater depth-charge, but there was no time to ponder. In another moment, he was off and staggering up the slope where Isak had vanished, Cecil’s words still ringing in his head.  

_You’ll hang for this! You and Valtersen!_

Even shuddered, ducking into a patch of scrub for cover as the Junkers roared low overhead, guns spitting fire, searching for other submarines or evidence of an impending invasion, until at last the churning noise of their engines faded and silence fell once more. Crossing his fingers, he could only pray that Isak had similarly escaped undetected.

But did Isak care what had happened to him?

_This is just a wartime romance, Even, just a fucking stupid fling!_

_Don’t say that! You don’t know that!_

From the direction Isak had vanished he thought he heard a low groan or cry – like an animal in pain, or a boy grieving – but it blew away on the wind even as he strained to listen.

As he lay, shattered in body and mind, stained with mud and staring up at the sky, despite having lost everything, including the man he loved, he felt oddly calm and peaceful.

 _We’ve burnt our bridges well and truly now_ , he thought, looking up at the wispy sky. _Nowhere to stay, nowhere to go. Except a neutral country that could be invaded any moment, just as ours was._

_And now we don’t even have each other._

The end was so near it seemed ridiculous. They were hemmed in an occupied country, ringed with ships and warplanes, with every police officer and every soldier looking for them. In less than an hour the peninsula would be combed by Nazi troops completing the Junkers’ reconnaissance. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

He remembered the King’s words, at the meeting before his escape, as clear as if he was saying them in front of him now.

_Are you willing to go against your own principles and morals, and follow only the instructions issued by your King, trusting always that we hold the best interests of you and all people of Norway at heart?_

_I am,_ Even had answered, but in the end, the heroic tale had not turned out like that. William had been right in a way; there would be no history books telling their story, no plaques put up to their great romance, no sunset to ride into for the happily ever after. Even had tried his best to save Isak, but Isak had not been willing; not at the price of a million lives, not at _any_ price. The young chemist had been answerable only to his own conscience.

Even hated that he still found that astonishingly sexy.

 _There’s no place for people like us, Even. Not in this universe, anyway_.

Even’s stomach clenched with pain. _If that’s the reason you left me, Isak,_ he thought, _it’s absolutely the worst reason ever. How can the world change if you don’t change it?_

Again came the cry, closer now, as if someone or something was hurt so badly that it couldn’t help calling out, despite the dreadful danger. This time the wind had dropped, and it seemed very near at hand. Unable to bear it any longer, Even hauled himself to his feet, limped cautiously around the rocky shelf, and stopped abruptly.

Isak was sitting in a crevice in the rock, curled up like a child, face pressed into his hands, seemingly oblivious to the sounds he was making. Unaware of Even’s presence, he was rocking himself to and fro, sobbing uncontrollably. Seeing him so exposed and vulnerable made Even check himself, and any anger he had nurtured towards Isak’s hurtful words drained away immediately.

“Baby,” he said softly touching Isak’s shoulder, and Isak jumped and stared at him with tearful, angry eyes.

“Why …” he stammered out. “Why didn’t you get on the fucking submarine?”

“Because you didn’t mean it,” said Even slowly, sitting painfully down beside him. “I know you didn’t mean what you said."

Isak wrinkled his nose and the hard, cold expression he had worn on the shore dropped away abruptly so that he looked years younger. He looked away, as he always did, but his hand found its way into Even’s.

"And besides, you look cute when you're grumpy," said Even teasingly, thinking of Jonas's last words to him. They certainly worked, because Isak flushed hot and bothered, and hardly managed to restrain a smile.

“I’m so cross with you,” he murmured, sounding anything but. “I’m meant to be on my way to Sweden, and you’re meant to be on your way to London. You were meant to be safe, and looked after, and now you're sitting here with me. You’ve messed it all up.”

Even stroked his hair behind his ears and kissed him softly. “I can live with that. But when you're cross with me, or scared, please don't shut me out. Don't dump me just to get on a submarine. You can scream and swear or cry at me all you want, but please, _please_ don't build walls between us. When you won't look at me - I can't bear it."

Isak nodded, biting his lip, and turning his eyes up to Even's. "I'm not good at that. It's a self-preservation thing I guess, but okay. I'll try."

Even tilted his chin, smirking coquettishly. "And there’s something else you were wrong about, too.”

Isak looked rebelliously back at him from under long lashes. “And what might that be?”

Even smiled, leaned forward and rubbed his nose against Isak’s playfully.

“We will find a place for us, Isak. Somewhere. I promise you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that last line is straight out of West Side Story! Sorry about that. Pure cheese. Beautiful song tho, had it in my head all day so thought I'd try to work it in .,.


	20. Border Pilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nazis may be hot in pursuit but Isak and Even still find time to have a bath together ... 
> 
> Cue smut and stuff - some mention of a suicide pact but it's okay I promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a while since I updated but holidays and course work got in the way, apologies! Here's a quick recap:
> 
> After obtaining the Nazi plans to create an atomic bomb, secret agent Even and freedom fighter bomb-maker Isak are on the run in Norway. Isak refuses to get on the British submarine that has been sent to bring them to safety because he doesn't want to use his skills to make nuclear bombs for anyone, even the "good guys". Even is heavily wounded after being shot in the thigh by Chris; Isak has to operate to save his life but it's hindering their escape. Previously, the Resistance headquarters with Jonas, Magnus, Eva, Noora and Vilde was attacked while Isak escaped; Even has been told they are dead but Isak isn't aware of this yet. Isak had planned to put wounded Even on the submarine and make his escape instead to Sweden with Jakob, a Norwegian farmer who acts as "border pilot" guiding refugees over the border to safety. Now both Isak and Even are trapped on a rocky peninsula after the British sub has been attacked and chased off by fighter planes; Nazi patrols are coming to find them...

Isak lay, drenched and freezing in the bottom of a small wooden cart, flinching as another huge load of fish poured over him, and the tail of a large halibut smacked into his cheek.

He turned his face to the side to breathe, and tried not to gag at the fishy smell that surrounded him; eels, saithe and monkfish slithering wetly into every crevice as the fisherman’s nets released that day’s catch above them. His searching fingers found Even’s, lying cramped next to him in the tiny space, and squeezed them hard, receiving an answering squeeze in response.

_How the hell had it come to this?_

Ice poured on top of the fish – the only way to keep them fresh – and Isak’s face felt deadly cold as chips of ice found their way down through the catch and started melting on top of him. A trickle of freezing fishy water found its way into his nostrils and he wrinkled his nose, willing himself not to sneeze, as the driver whipped up the horse and the cart slowly began to move, juddering painfully over the stony track. He felt Even tense at intervals – he must be in agony with his sore thigh – and with his little finger he tried to stroke his palm gently to soothe him.

This had been an utterly _terrible_ idea. Why oh _why_ had they not got on that damned submarine while they could? He was shaking from fear and the freezing weight of fishy cargo above them, and he could feel that Even was too; it was much too cold for him, wounded as he was, and only ten minutes into their journey Isak worried that his lover would go into shock. Even’s body temperature was already low as his system laboured to keep going, and any decrease in his vitals could be fatal.

_You utter fool, Isak. You utter fool._

“Halt!” A German voice rang out in the night, much too close to them for Isak’s liking, and he held his breath, heart hammering beneath his ribs.

They bumped abruptly to a stop. “What is it?” asked Jakob’s voice peevishly in Norwegian, and a German-accented voice replied.

“Hands up! Out of the cart!”

The cart swayed and bucked as Jakob climbed down. “What? I’m an old fisherman. I’m taking my son’s catch to market up at Sponvika.”

The glow of a flashlight glimmered between the heaped mounds of fish and Isak screwed his eyes up, trying to make himself as small as possible. Next to him he felt a small movement, Even’s finger was ready on the trigger of William’s Luger pistol, and a tiny click sounded as he released the safety catch, thankfully muffled by the wet bodies of the fish.

“We’re looking for spies,” barked the Nazi. “A British submarine came ashore not an hour ago down at the rocks. Have you seen anyone?”

“I haven’t seen anyone,” grumbled the old farmer. “I was helping my son load up from his boat in the dock. No one’s passed me on the road.”

“Stand aside,” snapped the German, and Isak could see the faint glow of a flashlight trained on the heaped surface of the cart. “Search it now!”

Gently, so gently, Even pressed the nozzle of the gun into Isak’s ear like a final caress. Isak’s heart beat wildly in his chest and he squeezed his eyes shut.

 _Do it, Even,_ he thought to himself. _Just do it._

 

***

 

They had waited in the blackness of the cliff for a heart-stopping half an hour after the British submarine had abruptly departed during the Luftwaffe air attack. Slowly their bravado began to leach away; Even started to shiver in the night air and Isak was frankly _kicking_ himself.

“What did Jakob say to do?” whispered Even for the umpteenth time.

Isak sighed, taking his hand and caressing it as he thought of the old border-pilot who had sworn to help him. “He said to wait here, and he’d pick me up and show me the way across the border to Sweden. I don’t think he was expecting a major bombing raid to happen in the meantime, though. That could have thrown any plan that he’d made.”

Even bit his lip. “We’re sitting ducks here. The patrols will arrive any moment. We should move.”

“How many bullets do you have in the gun?” asked Isak, his heart sinking.

Even flicked open the chamber to check. “Seven.”

“That’s not enough,” whispered Isak, feeling his stomach clench with nerves. “It’s not enough.”

His lover nodded, soberly, and there was a long pause before he spoke again. “Enough for me to hold off any challenge while you get away, though.”

Isak whirled round to him. “No. No Even. Don’t talk rubbish.”

Even shrugged. “We need to face facts, baby. I can’t run. They’d have us in a second. But you – ” He took Isak’s hand in his. “ _You_ run, my darling. If they come for us – you _go,_ do you hear? You don’t look back.”

“You should have got on that fucking submarine,” whispered Isak fiercely. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Well let’s hope there’s only seven Germans then,” said Even lightly, weighing the gun in his hand. “And that I’m a crack shot.”

Isak shook his head, barely able to speak. “We don’t need seven bullets.”

Even frowned. “We don’t?”

His heart sinking, Isak took a deep breath.

“We only need two.”

His lover paused, baffled for a moment, before the enormity of what Isak was suggesting sank in and he started up in horror. “Isak. We are _not_ doing that.”

Isak gazed at him despairingly.

“They can’t take us alive, Even. They’d – ” Jonas’s stern words came back to him suddenly – _They’ll torture you, Issy, and they won’t stop until you tell them everything –_

 _“_ You _know_ what they’ll do,” Isak protested. “They’ll kill _you,_ eventually – but they’ll keep me alive to do – that.”

“I know,” breathed Even, biting at his nails in inner torment.

“If it comes to it, I want you to be the one to do it,” whispered Isak, nestling closer. “I don’t think I could ever. And I won’t mind so much if – if it’s you.”

“One bullet for you, and then the other for me?” Even laughed harshly, but there was no humour in it. “My God. I can’t believe we’re actually talking about this. It’s like Romeo and Juliet.”

“Actually, Romeo and Juliet kill themselves, not each other,” said Isak with forced levity, in an attempt to stop the tears rolling down his cheeks. “But Romeo dies first. So I guess that makes you Juliet.”

“Juliet?” quipped back Even, his own eyes glistening wet in the moonlight. “You think _I’m_ your Juliet?”

Isak shrugged wildly; this conversation was taking a hysterical turn. “Well as I’m Romeo, you _have_ to be my Juliet, I’m sorry.”

“That’s too bad,” muttered Even, moving closer, breath warm on Isak’s ear. “I always thought I’d get to be Romeo to you, if you know what I mean.”

Isak’s lips parted as Even’s mouth grazed suggestively along his neck, and for a moment he was consumed by _want_ mixed with boiling anger and fear; he could have had this man, if he’d only acted differently, they could have been safe to London in a submarine, they could have been together, spent _time_ together like Even said, discovered at their own pace who liked being Romeo and who Juliet.

And now they would never _have_ that time, because of his own stupidity.

“We have _now_ ,” whispered Even, as if he was reading Isak’s thoughts, and Isak turned and kissed him, fiercely, passionately; their teeth cut together and he bit into Even’s lip too harshly but his lover didn’t seem to mind, clenching Isak’s neck in both his hands as he kissed back with all his strength, as if they stood at the very edge of the world.

The next moment there was the soft neigh of a horse from the shadows and the creak of a cart, and they sprang apart as if they had been burned.

“Transport’s arrived,” said the old Norwegian farmer dryly, emerging from the darkness. “Get your arses in the cart, quick.”

 

***

 

“Search the cart!”

Isak bit his lip, willing himself not to cry out, trying not to shake with fear. This had been a _terrible_ mistake. Not only for him and Even, but for the old border-pilot who was helping them – like so many Norwegians who helped refugees to flee to safety in Sweden – for no money or fame, just the simple reason that it was the right thing to do.

But now Jakob would pay the price for their capture. He would be tortured, shot, and his family likewise; maybe all their friends, perhaps his whole _village_ – the Nazis liked to send clear messages to those who harboured escapees. Isak mentally cursed himself; he had _tried_ , tried so _hard_ not to be responsible for another death, but now this grumpy old man and possibly many hundreds of others would die because of him.

A gauntleted hand thrust itself into the cart and started throwing out great handfuls of fish onto the road. Chinks of light appeared above them as their protective blanket of sea catch was gradually eroded. Jakob didn’t say a word; he was doubtless standing inscrutably by while the Nazis destroyed his week’s livelihood, and soon, his life.

Isak felt a shudder as Even pressed the gun into his temple. He didn’t need to look to know that Even was crying silently; he didn’t need to see the look of love in his eyes. He didn’t need to be told that Even was leaving it to the last moment, the last _possible_ moment, to take the step from which there would be no turning back.

 _Just do it, Even,_ he thought hopelessly. _Do it now._

“Hang on!” The hands stopped abruptly at the very second a fish was pulled inches from Isak’s cheek, the torchlight sliding away from them, Even’s fingers shaking on the trigger.

“Is this _halibut_?”

Jakob coughed, and only Isak could tell the slight waver in his gruff voice when he replied. “Yes. There’s been a good shoal outside the peninsula this week after the storms.”

“How much?” The Nazi held up the fish, and through the nest of eels still barely covering his eyes, Isak could see his shadow in the torchlight, weighing it in his palm. “I haven’t eaten halibut for almost two years. It’s a good size.”

“Uh – one kroner,” said Jakob, clearing his throat.

“That cheap?” The Nazi laughed. “I’ll take all of them. The men at the barracks deserve a feast tonight.”

Jakob leaned swiftly into the cart under pretext of gathering the halibut, and quickly covered Isak’s exposed cheek with the remaining fish. “There’s five more in this catch. Have the lot for five kroner.”

“Party tonight, boys!” The officer handed out the fish to his men amid a chorus of guttural appreciation, and spun a few coins to the old farmer. “Mind how you go now, old man. Wouldn’t want you to come across any trouble, now.”

 

***

 

It’s curious how the human spirit can kindle at a simple change of fortune. Only half an hour before, Isak had been trembling in a pool of icy water, certain of his own imminent death, and of Even’s; willing to be killed by the man he loved to avoid a worse fate at the hands of the Nazis. Yet here they were, against the odds, wrapped in blankets and sitting next to a warm stove, while Jakob’s wife irritably rattled pans and mixed them up some soup.

“Out, quick.” The farmer had pulled them out of his cart an hour after the German patrol and shaken them from their fearful trance. “We’re on the mainland now. You can bide in my farm awhile, before we make for the border before dawn.”

“They’ll have to have a bath,” snapped Jakob’s wife disapprovingly at the sight of them; she was obviously well used to secret passers-by in the night, and she made Jakob seem as warm and fluffy as Vilde in comparison. “I’m not having any dirty refugees stinking up my kitchen any longer than necessary.”

Even’s eyes met Isak’s, and they both suppressed an urge to laugh, rocking silently on their stools as they took in one another. They both looked an absolute _state_ ; drenched with fishy swill while Isak still had an eel hanging down his shoulder. Even’s face was crusted with scales like a merman and both of them absolutely _reeked_ of the deep salty stench of the sea. The tension of the last hour came bubbling up in hysteria and they giggled like children, faces buried in their hands to smother their laughter, until they could laugh no more.

“Well I’m glad you can still find things to laugh about,” snapped Jakob’s wife. “There’s some of us here got work to do.”

“Sorry,” said Isak humbly, as a bowl of soup was grudgingly thrust into his hands. “Thank you for everything.”

“I mean it.” Jakob’s wife barked out, removing the eel from Isak’s neck and beginning to gut and clean it. “As soon as you finish you’re to get clean. I don’t spend all day tidying this kitchen for you to come in and make it smell like the bottom of a trawler.”

Isak looked over to Jakob where he sat with his feet up on the hearth impassively smoking his pipe; he didn’t look as if he’d been recently staring death in the face, rather as if he was calmly pondering the cost of a ewe at market.

“Thank you, Jakob. If there’s any way I could ever repay you – I was so sure that we’d been discovered.”

The old man lit up a pipe and puffed large clouds into the smoky air. “That Nazi. Talking of British spies on the run from the peninsula.” He shot a keen glance at Isak. “Nothing to do with you boys, I suppose?”

“Nothing at all,” answered Isak automatically, before the reproving look on the old man’s face stopped him. “Well maybe a little bit to do with us,” he amended uncomfortably.

“You’re British?” Isak could feel the cogs in the man’s mind churning. Helping his fellow countrymen at risk of death was one thing; helping a British spy was another.

“No, we’re Norwegian, but the British were trying to get us out,” he confessed. “But the bombing raid came along and – now we’re on our own.”

The man nodded pensively. “Ah. Well that’s proper set the cat among the pigeons now, that has.”

Isak leaned forward. “I’m sorry, Jakob. I would never forgive myself if you’d got in trouble because of us.”

“Eh well.” The old farmer spat ruminatively into the fire. “Best get yourselves ready for the next leg if I were you. This here’s been the _easy_ bit.”

 

***

 

 _Having a bath_ hadn’t quite assumed the significance that it did once Jakob’s wife whipped the bowls back from them and motioned them into the back room. The farmhouse was a simple croft, with two rooms up and two rooms down, and the back room obviously functioned as a scullery-bathroom, already set up with a large steaming copper full of heated water and a shallow iron bath. Isak helped Even limp in, his arm slung round his shoulders, and it wasn’t until Jakob wordlessly dumped two towels on the floor and lent them the glow of a candelabra to see by that Isak suddenly realised.

He was going to see Even – naked.

“Be quick, boys.” The farmer shut the door behind him. “We need to get going before sunrise.”

Even glanced at him shyly; he looked as nervous as Isak felt. “Do you want to go first, or …”

Isak stared at the floor; his body didn’t seem to be able to do anything right now. “No. You go first.”

“I –“ Even swayed a little, and sat down on the edge of the bath. “I think I need some help.”

Isak moistened his lips and moved closer. “You shouldn’t get it wet.”

The corners of Even’s mouth twitched. “Get what wet?”

“Your _wound_ , you idiot.” Isak smacked him on the shoulder, and Even _laughed_ , a big open-hearted laugh of pure amusement, his eyes crinkling almost shut and his face shining like the sun. Isak stood gazing at him, awestruck; he had never seen anyone laugh like that before.

“I’m serious! You’ll get it waterlogged, we need to sterilise it properly – ” he began to stutter, his head starting to swim at Even’s intense gaze.

“I’m teasing you.” Even held his arms above his head like a child, his eyes not leaving Isak’s for a second. “But seriously, I do need a hand.”

“You’re the absolute worst,” breathed Isak as he moved in and pulled Even’s wet shirt up and over his head, trying not to look too fixedly at him but it wasn’t easy; his breath caught in his throat at the first sight of the taller man’s long lean body.

Despite the filth of the fishcart and his hair standing on end from where Isak had tugged his shirt, Even looked like a Greek sculpture; his long neck and slender hips, his broad shoulders and his flat stomach bathed in candlelight. Isak had a sudden urge to drop his face onto Even’s chest and simply nuzzle against him mindlessly until –

“You could do this yourself, easily,” he got out eventually, with difficulty.

“I’m rather enjoying playing doctors and nurses,” hummed back Even teasingly. “Now can you help me with my trousers.”

What were they playing at; only a few minutes out of danger and they were flirting like _newlyweds_. It was true what they said about wartime romances, Isak thought as he sank to his knees in front of Even, you needed to grasp the moment, because all you had was _now._ He’d heard a lot about how near-death experiences intensified the passion of the moment; people screwing frantically in air-raid shelters as if the threat of losing life made you want to cling to it and explore its sweetness all the more. All the adrenaline of the last few hours that still flooded their systems had now turned to hard, pulsing lust.

Slowly he started to unbutton Even and slide his sodden clothes off; Even’s breath hitched as he slightly raised his hips off the bath to assist him and – yes, okay, _yes_ , that’s how Isak got to be kneeling in front of a naked man in a position he’d only ever dreamed of.

He’d seen Jonas and even Magnus naked before – you couldn’t live in close proximity with people for two years and _not –_ but this was different – it wasn’t a brief, covert glance to be relived in secret, this was like a huge full banquet after years of starvation. Before he knew it he was leaning forward to graze his lips over Even’s tight stomach, while Even let out a shuddering moan, his fingers closing around the back of his neck and pulling his hair.

Isak rolled his cheek over Even’s skin, his mouth involuntarily opening to let his tongue probe deep into his stomach, nipping at his hips. _Lower, lower_ , his mind sang to him; _touch him, you know you want to_ , but Isak still held back, unsure.

“God, you taste of fish,” he muttered idiotically, and Even giggled from somewhere above him; Isak couldn’t tell, all he could take in was the sensation of his lover’s body quivering under his lips and despite his words he really didn’t _care_ that both of them were as filthy as hell.

“You stink of fish too. You should come in with me.”

“There isn’t room,” mourned Isak; he’d thought of that already but the bath was simply too small. “I’ll have to wash you, and then you’ll have to wash me.”

“That sounds good,” murmured Even, and then he was sliding away from him – _no don’t go!_ – until he was sitting down in the shallow bath, long legs draped over the sides, keeping his wounded thigh up and out of the water as Isak had ordered.

“I’ll wash your hair,” stuttered Isak, really it was a wonder he could form _words._

Even grinned and leaned his long neck back as Isak picked up the dipper with trembling hands. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, running them over and over Even’s long limbs, his narrow hips and the thick, heavy cock that now lay half-submerged in the steaming froth, making Isak’s mouth water and his knees turn to absolute _jelly._  

“Eyes shut,” he murmured as he poured the dipper over Even’s hair; more to avoid his teasing smile at Isak’s discomfiture. There weren’t any hair products – only a thick brick of tar soap – but he massaged it hard with the water until the smallest amount of foam was produced. He ran his fingers through Even’s hair, massaging the soap deep into his scalp and pouring the dipper over his head to rinse.

Even moaned at the contact, his eyes shut, and Isak could see him slowly hardening against his thigh as Isak fisted great tufts of his hair and washed out the fish scales. Watching Even’s growing excitement made his hands tremble and his eyes narrow, but Even made no move to hide himself, lying relaxed and open under Isak’s touch. It was all that Isak could do to not tear his own clothes off and climb on top of him regardless, but a sudden clang of pans and footsteps moving outside the door made both of them suddenly jump.

“Do you need any more water in there?” called Jakob.

“Maybe – maybe one more copper?” called back Isak, hoping he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt. “We need clean water for my friend’s wound.”

“Right you are.” Jakob stomped away. “I’ll see if the wife’s got any clean bandages.”

Even opened his eyes at the interruption and Isak was about to turn away in embarrassment but Even was already drawing him in for a kiss, teasing his lips open with his own, tongue gently exploring his mouth.

_What the hell. Life is now._

Isak’s other hand found its way dreamily over Even’s collarbones, tracing his fingers down the wet, soapy skin, passing gently from side to side across his pecs, and down over his stomach to memorise the shape of him for all eternity.

_Seize the day, Isak!_

He let his hand fall, circling over Even’s hips, feeling the other’s breathing catch slightly, before he mustered all his courage, dropped his fingers lower and yes, there it was, Even huge in his palm, so thick he could barely close his fingers around it; hot and musky and hard.

Isak’s heart skipped a beat and his pulse thundered so loudly in his ears that he went deaf for a second; oblivious to everything but Even’s soft lips under his and the fact he was actually holding another man’s cock in his hand for the first time in his life. All the blood in his body seemed to rush to his groin to make him sweetly and achingly hard; he pulled back and gazed at his lover with slack jaw and misted eyes.

“Is this okay?” he managed to whisper.

Even looked like a kid who’d been given a Christmas present; all flushed and eyes sparkling, his mouth slightly open in a delighted, breathless smile. He nodded wordlessly, as if he couldn’t even _speak,_ and encouraged, Isak squeezed his fingers and turned his wrist experimentally – he knew how _he_ liked it, but touching someone else was a different thing – and was rewarded by Even’s stifled, soft exhalation of desire and the way he screwed his eyes up almost in pain.

“Come here,” muttered Even, pulling at him. “I want to touch you too.”

Isak struggled gratefully with his own buttons – he didn’t think he could take any more holding back – but the next moment, “Here you go!” The door was abruptly thrown open and Jakob staggered in, bearing a large copper of steaming water, thankfully too preoccupied with not spilling any on the floor to take in the sight of Isak ducking away from Even, and Even rapidly drawing up his legs to shield himself from the farmer’s sight.

“Two hours,” barked Jakob. “Get yourselves dressed.”

“Fuck,” muttered Isak, after Jakob tossed two bundles of clothes on the floor and shut the door. That was twice the old farmer had almost caught them in a compromising position. “We have to be careful.”

Even was sitting bolt upright in the bath, holding himself tightly as he stared at Isak with a dark intense gaze. “What do you want to do, baby?” he groaned softly, his face alive with need.

What Isak _wanted_ to do was lean down, lick it, suck it, take it inside his body and see Even do that funny scrunched-up look of lust and pain from close quarters, but the more rational part of his brain was screaming at him; _don’t be stupid, this isn’t the place, this isn’t the time._

But if not now – then _what_ time?

“You’d better hurry up,” shouted Jakob’s wife from outside the door. “I need to use the water-closet.”

“I’m going to promise you now,” Even breathed, correctly divining the look on Isak’s face and hauling himself to his feet so Isak could take his turn in the bath. “When we get to safety, _nobody_ is going to interrupt us again.”

 

***

 

By midnight they were clean and dressed, wrapped in blankets and slumbering uneasily on the hearth under the watchful eye of the farm dog when there was a sudden, rapid fusillade of knocks on the back door. Isak’s eyes flew open, but Even slept on, his face pale and exhausted in the firelight.

Outside there was a muffled exchange of voices, and a door banged as Jakob came stumbling in; still dressed in his fisherman’s garb and his lined face twisted with anxiety. Isak wondered if he’d even been to bed.

“Nazis have started raiding houses down at the town," shouted the old farmer. "We have to go. _Now!_ ”

 

**TO BE CONTINUED >>>>!!!**


	21. The Hounds Of Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isak and Even are pursued by sniffer dogs in the forests of the Norwegian border, and Even starts to lose it - will they make it over the border in time, or will he push Isak away out of fear?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dark AF - sorry. Just finished a paper on genocide and dissidents, and it's kinda got a hold of me this week. 
> 
> HERE! TAKE MY ANGST AND SHARE IT AMONG YOU! I DONT NEED IT ANYMORE!
> 
> Things are going to turn out okay, but not right now though ...
> 
> * no animals were harmed in the making of this fic *

The Norwegian border stretches more than one thousand miles between its northernmost point at Treriksrøysa and the southerly province of Halden, Østfold. In the north it is bounded by great mountains and crevasses following the mountain rivers flowing to the Skagerrak; in the south it winds confusingly through thick tracts of forest, lakes and valleys.

It was bitterly cold; a raking wind was already freezing the country, though it would still be some time before the snows of winter would set in. Even didn’t need to be told by Jakob to know; if they were to attempt the rocky, wooded land crossing of the Østfold, peppered with marshes and lakes, they could waste no time.

Nevertheless, Even gritted his teeth as he limped painfully slowly through the waterlogged forest, hauling himself along with thick walking sticks, his thigh a blaze of pain. Jakob had clothed them in warm working clothes such as farmers would wear, but even the largest he had been able to find were still too short for him, and he shivered in the cold wind. Using the direct road was too dangerous, so they took a rambling route to the north which was thickly wooded. Isak had tried to support him with his arm over his shoulder but there was no room for both of them to walk abreast. Now Even stumbled behind as best he could, Isak going ahead to use the compass and try to clear the scrub so that they could stumble through.

Dark branches loomed overhead, scraping painfully across their cheeks as they staggered into yet another unseen tangle of bushes; the moon of the early night had faded but the blackness made it almost impossible to see and they dared not risk a light.

“Wait,” muttered Even, putting out a shaking hand to Isak walking in front of him. “Stay. I need to rest.”

“Again?” Isak sounded panicked. “We only just rested.”

“Half an hour ago, Isak, and have you forgotten I can’t go as fast as you?” snapped Even furiously, sinking down onto a fallen tree-trunk and wiping the cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

 _Damn you, Isak,_ he thought furiously. _What the hell have you got us into with your stupid pride._

“We have to keep going!” hissed back Isak furiously. “Dawn will come before we’re half way to the border!”

“Just five minutes,” huffed Even, closing his eyes and leaning his head back dizzily. “Five minutes.”

After the alert of a Nazi raid on the village, they had driven north-east in a cattle trailer with the lights off and at breakneck speed; racing for time before the search spread to the farm. Even had feared for Mrs. Jakob and the folk back in their village; a glimpse of a British submarine in Norwegian waters coupled with the Mosquito attack on Oslo a few days previously would send the Nazis into an overdrive of paranoia about a British invasion. Every villager would be pulled from their beds that night and interrogated; their homes searched, and any incriminating thing, whether it related to the fugitives or not, would be used against them. Even had seen the punishment of “collaborator villages” up in Tromso; it wasn’t pretty.

The last sight Even had of the farm was of Mrs Jakob putting their stinking clothes on the fire, running her broom briskly around the kitchen as if to remove any trace of her unwelcome guests.

 

***

 

“We’ll drop you north of Tistedalen.” Jakob’s old finger stabbed at the map spread over the kitchen table. “The Nazis patrol the water border around Sponvika and the straits to Sweden; some people used to make it over the creek but that’s not possible now. Your best bet is to strike on foot through the forests to the east; from Tistedalen it’s a fifteen-mile hike to the Swedish town of Nossemark. It would take a healthy man five hours; but you – well. Let’s hope that luck is on your side. There’s frontier posts of course but the patrols can’t be everywhere at once so you have to keep your wits about you and hide to let them pass by; but beware sniffer dogs, they’ll run you down in minutes if they get a whiff of your scent.”

Even gazed unhappily at the map in front of him. He felt tired and weak; the hour’s sleep he’d snatched had left him more dazed than refreshed, and his wound was hurting badly again. After their interrupted bath, Isak had sterilised and dressed it with boiling water and farm vinegar, as they’d run out of sulpha paste, and made Even swallow the last two precious tablets from his bottle. But the pills did nothing for the pain – and every time his wound was touched it left him dizzy and rocking in agony, wishing only to curl up like an animal in its burrow and sleep the winter away.

There was _no way_ he could hike fifteen miles of rocky forest with Nazi sniffer-dogs yapping at their heels.

“Isn’t there any other way?” he said crabbily. “It’s just –”

He broke off, shivering, and Isak looked at him anxiously and squeezed his hand under the table. Even felt a sudden surge of anger towards his boy – _this is your fault, this is all your fault_ – and pulled away. Isak’s face fell.

“I thought you were going to die yesterday,” said the old man, shrugging. “You’re still alive though, aren’t you?”

 _Yes I’m still alive_ , thought Even bitterly, _but how long’s that luck going to hold?_

“Well, let’s see.” Jakob cleared his throat. “You can’t swim across the creek – it’s patrolled by ships – and any car or lorry entering Sweden is stopped and searched. Refugees often hang underneath the bigger lorries by their fingers and toes – but you need a good grip.”

Even sighed; he wouldn’t be able to do that either.

“Or there’s the trains – Sweden lets Nazi supply trains run across it from Germany to Norway and back – but you’d have to jump from a bridge as it passes underneath and something tells me you’re not up to that. One false move and you’re under the wheels. Sometimes we drop slurry across the line so they have to stop to clear it and people slip in the trailers quickly; but once you’re on the train it doesn’t stop until it reaches Germany. You have to throw yourself off and sometimes those trains are going at high speed. We don’t often hear back from people who try that way.”

Even shook his head, rubbing at his eyes. Since his injury all his reflexes had slowed; there was no way he would be able to react so swiftly. _Damn you Chris_ , he thought, grinding his teeth against the unrelenting pain, _and you too, Isak. We could have been in England right now, instead of being on the run, wanted for treason by the British_.

“We’ll try the forest,” he mumbled, Isak’s eyes searching his face worriedly. “We’ll take our luck with the dogs.”

 

***

 

 “You’re angry with me,” Isak’s face glimmered white in the darkness as he fidgeted nervously next to Even.

“Damn right I’m angry!” Even flared back, heedless of the need to keep quiet. “If you hadn’t fucked things up with the submarine we could have been _safe_ by now!”

“I know, I know,” Isak twisted his hands, his voice shaking. “You don’t have to _shout_ at me.”

Even put his hands to his head; everything was spinning around him. Somehow things had become _worse_ since the bath; they’d both been so naked and open to each other he was suddenly and acutely aware of everything he stood to lose if they were captured. He could still feel the touch of Isak’s lips on his, and the ghost of his hand sliding between his legs making every nerve in his body turn to fire.

 _I should never have let him touch me like that,_ he thought fiercely to himself _, I know what I’m missing now, and I’ll never, ever forgive him if we –_

“You’re so stupid!” he hissed angrily at Isak. “Where have you got us now, huh?! We’ll be lucky if we last the hour!”

“Don’t please, don’t shout,” sobbed Isak, pulling at his coat. “They’ll hear us.”

“Too late!” roared Even, his emotions finally consuming him. All he wanted was to pull down the last scraps of normality around them, force the end, finish this miserable charade of creeping through a forest when they both knew chance was stacked against them. They’d be finishing this trip at the end of a firing squad if they were lucky, and the sooner the better. “You should have thought of that when you were running away from the only help we have!”

“I never wanted this,” Isak dashed away his tears. “I never wanted to hurt you!”

“Well you fucking have, haven’t you?” Even blazed at him. “Just _go_ , Isak; it’s _you_ they want, not me. I can’t do this. Just leave! _Leave_!”

Isak shook his head, sniffing. “I’m not leaving you, you idiot. And nice try; but you’re not dumping me either. Not now.”

“Leave, or I’ll shout until a patrol finds us,” Even pushed at him petulantly, he felt weak as a child but Isak stumbled backwards anyway. “Go!”

He opened his mouth to scream, scream until the forest was alive with bullets and the sound of dogs, but he broke off as Isak, struggling to keep his feet, grasped vainly at something to keep his balance just as the moon sailed out from behind a cloud. Even stared; and at the same moment Isak gasped and clapped his hand to his mouth.

A pair of feet were hanging at his shoulder.

“What the hell – ?” breathed Even, heart pounding.

The body hung, crudely tied by its wrists to the branches of a tree. Its head had dropped down and its hair fell matted across its chest; Even was glad that they couldn’t see its face. Its clothes signalled that it had been a young woman perhaps, or a tall girl child; dressed in a patched coat and poor boots that had seen better days. She had been shot, perhaps through the head; there was dark bloodstains down her dress.

“Oh God. Oh fuck.” Even backed away, his hand over his mouth. “I’m going to be sick.”

He stumbled away from the body, but, “Not there!” Isak suddenly grasped him by the wrist. “Look around you!”

Around the clearing, now clearly visible in the moonlight, hung seven more ghastly trophies, all bodies tied in the same state, some old, some young, some dressed in threadbare jackets, others in richer, more comfortable clothing. On the lapels of at least two of them were stitched the yellow star. The youngest seemed by its size to be barely six years old.

In the terrified silence, all they could hear was the eerie creak of branches as the bodies swung slightly in the breeze.

They had walked into a forest of death.

Even dropped to his knees, heedless of his wounded leg, and retched onto the forest floor.

Isak pulled his sleeve over his nose as he peered closer, and Even marvelled at Isak’s composure; he himself was a shivering _wreck_. “They’ve not been here long,” he whispered worriedly. “Animals would have disturbed the bodies by now. They could have been killed as recently as this evening.”

Even took a deep breath. “They’ve been set up here as – as a warning to others.”

“We need to go _now_. Now, baby!” Isak pulled at him, but in that moment they heard something on the distant breeze that made the hair stand up on the back of their necks.

The high, distant howl of a dog, followed by a volley of barks, as the hounds picked up their scent.

 

***

 

When Even had been small, one of his nightmares had been running through the wood at the bottom of his garden in slow motion while a bear panted at his heels. This wasn’t so different; he couldn’t get his body to _work_ ; it refused to obey his urgent commands to _run! run!_ despite Isak holding him as best he could by his collar to stop him from falling. But the smaller man was also tired and weak, and several times in a panic they crashed into each other and fell down in a heap before struggling up again in sheer terror.

“Run along the river, it’ll confuse our scent,” panted Isak, but Even shook his head. “There’s not enough time. We can’t outrun them.”

They had stumbled to the edge of the forest, and before them in the moonlight was spread the large river straights that flow almost all the way to Sweden before spilling into the huge Aspern lake; a beauty spot in summer, but in the raw autumn a certain death trap.

Isak lifted him, his small body buckling under Even’s weight. “I’m not leaving you. Let me carry you!”

But only a few steps was too much for him, and they fell awkwardly onto the shore of the lake, Even stifling a cry as they did so.

“Fuck! Fuck!” Isak was looking as desperate as he felt, frantically pulling at Even’s hand to get him up. “Try, you have to _try_ , baby!”

Even tried, but the fall had jarred his good knee, and now he could barely crawl over the rocks that lined the shore. Behind them in the still air a joyous howl pierced the night; a hunting call, followed by a chorus of barks.

“They’re getting closer,” groaned Even. “They know we’re here.”

He estimated they had fifteen, twenty minutes at best before the first dog broke out of the forest. He braced himself and felt for his gun; he would make sure he went down first; give Isak the best chance of getting away. There was no way he’d let them take him alive.

“Baby, wait here.” Isak was getting to his feet, pulling out his knife.

“What?” Even clutched at him. “What the hell are you doing!”

Isak pulled his hood over his face. “If they’re on our scent, we need to distract them. They’re kept hungry for a reason; we need to fix that. Wait here for me.” Without another word he turned and ran back into the forest the way they had come.

“Isak!” hissed Even frantically. “Isak!”

“ _Wait_!” and Isak was gone. Even pulled at his hair in frustration, but it was impossible to follow him and he had no idea what Isak had in mind. Tears blurred his vision as he hauled his useless body around the jumble of rocks. If they could find somewhere to hide, somewhere protected, until the patrol passed by –

Even knew it was a vain hope. Hounds on the scent weren’t that easily thrown.

He didn’t find a hiding place, but he did find the remains of an old logging station; a mouldering heap of tall logs felled from the trees of the surrounding forests. Before the war timber had been cut down and transported by water; now the cabers lay neglected and rotting in small heaps in the culverts of the great river.

The sight gave Even the first prickings of hope. Rafts and small barges had often been used to carry timber; but as he looked around the culvert he was disappointed. There were no boats that had not been holed and scuppered; and the rafts had been hacked to pieces. The Nazis had made sure that nobody could use them again.

But the logs were still there; some dried and light, others wet and rotten. Could he get them to float again?

“You’re not seriously thinking of using these as your getaway, are you, Naesheim?”

Even looked up sharply. Christoffer Schistad was sitting on top of the pile of logs, idly picking at his fingernails. His face was shadowed in the moonlight and Even was glad that he didn’t have to see the blood coating the Nazi’s hair, or the hideous hollow where the bullet had blasted away the side of his skull.

“Leave me alone.” Even tried to blink away the treacherous vision, scrubbing at his face with the back of his hand.

“Escape? That’s a laugh.” Chris sighed and lay back on his side, reclining on the log as if it were a deckchair on a Sunday morning. “You boys should have got into bed with the British while you still could.”

“Get out of the way,” hissed Even, although he knew Chris bore no weight, and the ludicrousness of talking to his own dark thoughts did not escape him. “I’m going to try anyway.”

“Be my guest.” Christoffer shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Even gritted his teeth and heaved at a caber with all his strength but it barely gave way. He huffed in pain and tried again; no luck.

“It’s a shame, really,” pondered Chris, watching him. “We do so little with the time we have. Would you have done things differently if you knew it was all going to end – like this?”

“Shut up!” Even strained again using the remaining strength from his arms, but after a tiny shift the log remained obstinately still.

“Would you have hit Valtersen over the head and thrown him on the submarine? Or would you have thrown him down in the bathroom and fucked him? Guess you’ll never know now.” Christoffer laughed, and it spurred Even to a fury, snarling curses as he pushed again and again at the heavy log, but the Nazi’s words still trickled into him like oil.

“You’ll never know what it means to make love to a man, you know. Never know what it’s like to hold him or taste him; to kiss him until the world ends around you, to have eternity in your bed for a few hours. Never know what it’s like to be inside him, or have him inside you – not that I know what your thing is, but I can probably guess.”

Even clapped his hands to his ears, trying to block out the slow drip of poison into his mind, but the voice continued nonetheless.

“They’ve found us, you know.” Chris changed tack, bloodied eyes gazing at him soberly. “Me and Willhelm. They’re searching for you. It won’t be a slow death.”

Even hauled himself to his feet, slapping his face with his hand, casting along the shore. If he could find a stick – to act as a lever – _surely_ the log would fall?

“Is he worth it?” Chris’s voice is gentle, persuasive. “Is it really worth it? All this panic and fighting when you could have a quick way out instead?”

Even paused and looked at him. Chris smiled, a hideous gash in the moonlight. “You still have the gun.”

The weight of Willhelm’s Luger was heavy in his pocket. Even’s fingers twitched.

“He won’t make it back, you know.” Chris’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “It’ll be so much easier this way.”

Even took a deep breath, trying not to let his hand wander.

“That’s it.” Christoffer smiled gently. “It’s so easy. So quick. None of the capture, the humiliation, the shame, or the torture …”

The handle of the gun was suddenly in his hand. Even looked down at it stupidly, barely able to realise what he was doing.

_If it comes to it, I want you to be the one to do it._

Isak’s voice was suddenly very clear in Even’s mind.

_I don’t think I could ever. And I won’t mind so much if – if it’s you._

Even straightened, put the gun back in his pocket, and bent to pick up the stick at his feet.

“I won’t do it, Chris. I won’t leave him alone. Not like this.”

 

***

 

Just as he was about to try once more at the logs, there was a scuff and a spatter of gravel from behind him, and he turned to see Isak’s bent, bloodied figure as he staggered onto the road.

“Oh my God,” breathed Even, forgetting all thoughts of Chris as he took in the sight of his shivering lover. “What happened, baby!?”

Isak was smeared with blood from head to foot; the smell alone was enough to turn Even’s stomach. He looked exhausted, and the knife that he held was black and dripping.

“What – Isak – what have you done!”

The younger man didn’t meet his eyes, swaying from foot to foot.

“Isak! Are you hurt?” Even was growing seriously alarmed, not least from the growing volley of barks from the depths of the forest, but even as he listened, the yelps faltered and died, leaving nothing but an excited snuffling and whining, and the distant sounds of men shouting and cursing.

“What – what’s going on?” he asked, shaking Isak’s shoulder. “Look at me! What’s happened!”

Isak took a deep breath and flung away the knife into the depths of the river as if he could bear to hold it no longer. “They needed meat,” he said heavily. “So I gave it to them.”

Even frowned in confused despair. “What meat, baby? Did you hurt yourself?”

Isak shook his head. “The bodies hanging up in the forest – they were still – “” Even’s stomach tensed abruptly; he didn’t want Isak to go on, but go on he did, as if talking to a priest in the confessional. “Those dogs will eat anything. It’s not their fault; they’re trained for it, they hunt because they’re starving. I just had to – cut them down where they could be reached.”

Even felt like vomiting again. “Oh God, baby – _no_.”

“Don’t – “ Isak put his bloodied hands to his face. “Don’t say anything.”

They could dimly hear the furious roars of the dog handlers in the forest, and the whimpering of the sated hounds as they ripped at their meal, unwilling to be torn from it and pulled back on the scent again.

“You’re covered in their blood,” he whispered finally to Isak, pushing at him. “They’ll be able to hunt again soon enough.”

Isak swayed and sat down heavily on the log where Chris had been perched. “I know.”

But as he leaned back, the log suddenly gave way under his weight and the cascade of timber was rolling down into the river. Isak’s feet shot up in the air as he disappeared underneath the logs, and Even lurched forward, grasping vainly at the bubbling water. _No, no! Not like this!_ He felt a hand and clasped it, but as he tried to pull Isak up, his leg gave way and he crashed head first into the water, scrabbling wildly at anything he could. He threw an arm round the log and held it, and the next moment Isak was surfacing next to him, coughing as if he was going to be sick.

“I can’t swim,” gasped Isak, flailing at the log, and Even grasped his collar with his remaining strength and held him tight. The water was freezing but the log was suddenly _moving,_ bobbing, finding the current and pulling them both out and away from the river bank, and down the long stretch of river that would practically take them to the border –

“Hold on,” he groaned, although he could no longer feel Isak’s fingers in his numbed hand. “Hold on, Baby.”

 

***

 

“Come on!” Isak was suddenly tugging at him, pulling him through an ocean of mud. “We’re here! Get out!”

But Even couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t –

 

***

 

Now _somehow_ he was upright, somehow, dripping wet with an arm over Isak’s shoulder, staggering on nerveless legs down some kind of stony incline as the trees thinned around them. Christoffer paced slowly in front of them, head bowed as if attending some solemn rite. He was the only thing that Even could see clearly, but Chris didn’t turn around, didn’t look at him, and there was light all around them, suddenly, needlessly bright, were they torches, were they searchlights –

 

***

 

Stubbles of grass grazed his cheek painfully as he was dragged, roughly, through a field of shorn hay, or maybe straw, he couldn’t tell, and he couldn’t feel his legs, and the light was suddenly all around them, exposing them to their pursuers. Christoffer turned, pointing at the horizon, and from the break in the forest behind them poured the hounds, fierce and intent, not searching any more, but running them down like rabbits for the kill –

 

***

 

Barks filled the air and he tried to open his mouth, to shout to Isak, to tell him he was sorry, that he loved him, and he tried to reach for the gun in his pocket but his lifeless fingers refused to work, refused to let him carry out the promise that he’d made – and Christoffer was standing above him, arms folded, shaking his head sorrowfully, and –

\- and Isak was suddenly kneeling down, his hands held above his head in surrender and shouting something desperate even as the first of the dogs, its jaws snapping, panted up the slope and hurled itself towards them –

 

**TO BE CONTINUED ...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yow! I know - that was a tough one. Now I've successfully unburdened all my angst and IF you're still with me, I PROMISE the next chapter will be a happy one!! 
> 
> * Desecration of bodies in many religions including Judaism is a sin - this will be addressed in future chapters, I hope it wasn't too upsetting or triggering.


	22. No Safe Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isak and Even are refugees on the run, hunted by the Nazis as they cross the border into neutral Sweden with no protection. Until a certain someone comes along ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT (AGAIN) SO THIS CHAPTER IS GONNA BE A BIGGIE WITH ANGST AND TEARS IM WARNING YA! JK I PROMISE IT WILL BE ALL RIGHT IN THE (VERY) END !!!
> 
> ***
> 
> During WW2, nearly 50,000 Norwegians were refugees in Sweden, alongside more than 16,000 Danes. 
> 
> Sweden was not invaded by the Nazis, its neutrality meant that it had to navigate certain problematic things such as letting German trains cross its soil bound for Norway, trading goods with both the Nazis and the Allies, and tolerating but not encouraging refugees to enter, in case it compromised the principle of neutrality.
> 
> In the early years of the war, because of neutrality, Sweden didn't support training of armies-in-exile such as the Free Norwegian Army or the (much smaller) battalions of exiled Danish soldiers that fought alongside them. Later in the war, Sweden allowed such armies training and provisions. 
> 
> "Refoulement" is the action of pushing a refugee back over a border back to danger and is prohibited by international law.

Isak knelt in the muddy field, hands raised high above his head as the dogs snarled and leapt around him.

“Even!” he shouted desperately. “Even!”

But Even lay a few feet away, white-faced and unconscious. In his pocket Isak could just see the squat brown handle of Willhelm’s revolver. If he could just get to it – then he could carry out their promise. First Even and then himself. Better death than surrender.

He moved, and a dog barked a fierce warning in his face. Isak flinched back. Death by his own hand was one thing; death being torn to pieces was another.

Yet something odd was happening. Despite their bared fangs and warning snaps the dogs were not the ones he’d glimpsed on their pursuit, ravenous and wild. These were trained tracker dogs, glossy and well-cared for, howling when he moved but holding off from the attack like sheepdogs guiding a nervous flock. Behind them he was dimly aware of men running with guns cocked, men dressed in the blue uniform of the Swedish Army, not the black of the Gestapo or the grey of the Nazis.

The sight made his heart leap with renewed hope. As his eyes swam into focus he could see a roadsign lettered RORVIKEN and his face broke into a sudden smile. He was weary, desperately weary and on the brink of collapse, but his final, furious struggle pulling an unconscious Even through the field meant they had crossed the border. They had fallen far south of the town they had aimed at, but at least they were in neutral Sweden.

 “Spies!” he heard a shout in Swedish. “Nazi spies!”

“No! We’re Norwegian!” he shouted desperately back at the approaching soldiers. “Refugees. We claim asylum!”

 “Don’t move!” roared the soldier as Isak attempted to get to his feet. “Get back!”

“Stop! Stop!” Another voice was suddenly shouting, in Norwegian amid the clamour of the snarling, leaping dogs. “He’s ours! He’s one of ours!”

Isak glanced around, his hands still raised high above his head. From the Swedish side a group of men were approaching, dressed in the green livery of the Norwegian Army, though their uniform was dirty and torn. One, wearing a bedraggled greatcoat, stepped forward and shouted at him in Norwegian.

“We are the Free Norwegian Forces in exile in Sweden,” he bellowed. “What’s your name? Where are you from?”

“My name is Isak,” shouted Isak, too traumatised and desperate to remember his cover-name. “Isak Valtersen. We’re from Oslo.”

All the Resistance had heard of the Free Norwegian Army – composed of refugees and other allies who formed brigades in exile in unoccupied countries like France, Britain and Sweden. Some were able to fight on the side of the Allies – some were not, depending on whether the country was neutral or not, as to allow residents to fight on one side or the other was deemed to invalidate neutrality.

“Isak? Isak Valtersen?” The Norwegian plunged forward, staring at him. “Oh my God, it’s really him! Everyone’s heard about you, man! I can’t believe you made it!”

“What?” said Isak confused, “but where, how?”

“You’re in all the papers!” cried the Norwegian, throwing his arms around Isak. “Every week there’s a new episode about which Nazis the Angel has killed that week. I can’t believe it’s you!”

“Welcome to Sweden!” cried another Norwegian, throwing his hand out for Isak to shake. “Welcome to safety!”

Isak’s jaw dropped as his exiled countrymen surged around him, raising him to his feet, slapping his back and pumping his hand. This was happening all too fast – one moment he and Even had been crawling through the mud of the forest, hungry and hunted – yet only a few hundred meters further on and he was – _famous_?

“Hang on, we saw him first!” shouted back the Swede, bristling at the Norwegian. “Push them back! There’s too many refugees filling up our country, we can’t take them all!”

“They’ve crossed the border!” shouted back the Norwegian. “Their feet are on Swedish soil. Are you going to commit a war crime, Gunnar? Refoulement* is a serious offence, and there’s a lot of people here watching you do it.”

The Swede looked like he was going to explode, but the Norwegians faced him out, shouting “This is a war hero we have here!” until finally he retreated, muttering. Another Swede shrugged his shoulders and signalled his men to withdraw. “Let’s stop fighting, Gunnar. There’s enough fighting going on elsewhere without us bickering between ourselves.”

The Norwegian threw an arm around Isak and offered him a hit from his hip flask. “It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m Captain Adrian Eksett of the Free Norwegian Forces. Sorry about these guys, they’re a bit twitchy about so many people coming over. They’ve had thousands this month from Denmark alone. Worried that Hitler will think they’re helping the Allies or something.”

Isak coughed and spluttered on the bitter alcohol, but it brought him to himself and finally he was able to think clearly. “Thank you, but we need help. My friend is really sick.” He gazed anxiously down to where Even lay. “He needs medical attention straight away.”

“There’s a Red Cross refugee camp half a mile away. Can you walk?”

Isak dragged himself painfully to his feet and stood swaying. “I think I can, but you’ll have to carry him.” The Norwegians crowded around, grabbing roughly at a limb each, until Isak stopped them. “Careful, please. He’s badly wounded.” He stepped closer, trying to see Even’s white unconscious face, but the field suddenly whirled around him and he fell to his knees, his head pounding.

“I’m sorry –” he stuttered, “bit tired –”

“Come on lads,” said Captain Eksett, picking Isak up and throwing him over his shoulder with no more difficulty than if he were a doll. “Let’s give these two a ride in the truck.”

 

***

 

The dismal, grey iron gates and the barbed wire of the detention centre were the first introduction to their new life in Sweden as refugees. As they disembarked from the battered Free Norwegian Army truck in a cloud of diesel fumes – in reality a commandeered open-backed farm trailer – a crowd of Swedes watched Isak limp painfully through the gates followed by Even, carried on a makeshift stretcher fashioned from a dirty blanket.

Their welcome was mixed. Some glared at them, muttering, _get back to where you came from_ ; others looked at them in sympathy and offered Isak handfuls of fresh fruit and nuts. A Swedish woman stepped forward and offered him a sip from a beaker of water; Isak drank and drank as if he would never stop.

Inside the gates, the prospects seemed even poorer. From a flagpole the battered white insignia of the Swedish Red Cross snapped in the bitter wind. Smoke from makeshift camp-fires filled the air; rows and rows of small grey windswept tents stretched before them. Huddled figures wandered past wrapped in patched blankets and gazing at the new arrivals curiously. Children ran and shouted with tangled hair and bare feet. To one side the smell of cooking lingered in the air over a shabby mess tent, and a long queue was already forming outside in readiness.

“The medical centre is up this way,” said Eksett, directing his men to a long white series of tents, pitched military-style behind flapping red tape. “They don’t have good facilities, but he’ll be able to get cleaned up and have a sleep.”

Isak’s heart sank. _Get cleaned up and have a sleep._ Was this the best care that Even could hope for?

“I want to go with him,” protested Isak, but Eksett shook his head. “You need to go straight to the processing tent and get registered. They don’t like anyone delaying that part. Once you’re done, why don’t you come out and have a drink with the boys in town? Everybody’s so excited that you’re here.”

Isak looked at him doubtfully. “Well – thank you. But I need to stay with him until he wakes up. I don’t have any money, anyway,” he said, looking down at the ripped farmers gear that Jakob had lent them. Even his small backpack containing the last of his supplies had been lost in that last, fearful flight to safety.

“No money? Can’t be having that, can we?” Eksett took a step back, whistling over the Norwegians who were leaning against the Army truck, smoking and chatting between themselves. “Hey lads! Time to show your generosity. Let’s have a whip-round for Norway’s very own war hero!”

Grins broke out as men fumbled in their ripped pockets to fill Isak’s hands with coins. Other refugees seeing the commotion dropped by to enquire what was going on; upon being told that the Dark Angel himself had arrived in the camp they started, cried out in amazement, and greeted Isak himself with hugs and kisses, pushing money and food into his hands until he could literally carry no more.

“Thank you,” said Isak, staring at the money humbly. They had little enough themselves, he could see that, and not for the first time he wondered why people who were poor could give money away so freely while rich people hoarded every penny they got.

“It’s little enough for what we owe you,” said Eksett cheerfully. “You guys fought the war alone for all of us for years. And it’s too late for the Ghost and his crew, so we’re just grateful you got out when you did.”

Isak swallowed. “Too late for … What do you mean?”

“Why, you don’t know? Oh shit.” Eksett looked genuinely remorseful. “I thought - I assumed that’s why you were here.”

“Heard what?” Isak’s heart started drumming in his chest at a thousand beats a minute. Somehow he _knew_ – knew what Eksett was going to say, and he didn’t _want_ to hear it, as if the saying of it would make it real, make it painful, make it more than he could bear –

“Look.” Eksett reached in the back of the truck and pulled out a folded newspaper, a few days old. Isak’s written Swedish was even worse than his spoken, but he could recognise the publisher AFTONBLADET and just about make out the headline: RESISTANCE FALLS IN OSLO.

Everything around him seemed to have gone very quiet. Isak could no longer hear the the beep of the passing trucks, the raised voices of people scuffling over a blanket, or the cries of the children playing a makeshift game of football with a tightly-wound ball of rags. Silently he held out a hand for the paper.

At a glance he saw everything he needed to know. Five photographs stared at him from the front page: corpse photos, pale from where the flash had reflected off the slab in the morgue, almost unrecognisable. Five close-up photos – of Jonas, Eva, Magnus, Noora and Vilde.

His friends looked like they were sleeping, eyes closed and faces dirty and stained. Next to them were placed their old university graduation photos, eyes bright, smiling for the camera, like a cruel reminder of everything they had been.

“Thanks.” He folded the paper – he didn’t need to read how it had happened – the words “eliminated at their dug-out in Oslo,” and “bodies paraded through the streets as a warning” leapt out at him quickly enough – and handed it back, oddly calmly. He stood for a moment, a white haze filling his mind. He couldn’t seem to feel his feet any more, couldn’t seem to feel much of anything, to be honest.

Eksett gazed at him sympathetically. “You okay? Do you need a drink?”

Isak was tempted – tempted to sit down with them, reach for the bottle and keep drinking until oblivion called – but the thought of his lover lying close to death in the medical tent was somehow the only thing he could focus on.

_I have Even. He’s the only thing I have left in the world and I can’t leave him._

“Thanks but –” He didn’t really know what to do, what to feel, didn’t know anything. _My friends are dead, all dead, all dead_ , beat inside his head like some little unworldly mantra.

“They’ll live forever, you know. True heroes never die.” Eksett removed his cap, and laid his hand on his heart. Around him the other soldiers hastily stubbed out their cigarettes and did the same, but Isak barely noticed the gesture that honoured his fallen friends.

He felt shocked – shocked to his core, but not surprised. Somehow, ever since he’d run from the dug-out in a hail of bullets, he’d always known that it would be the last time he’d ever see them. He’d tried to put the thought out of his mind as he concentrated on getting both Even and himself to safety, but now the truth had finally caught up with him in all its hideous agony.

Now their faces flashed by him in quick succession. Jonas confounded, love and desperation mixed on his face as Isak stood on his tip-toes to kiss him farewell. The fierce battle-happy grin on Magnus’s face as he knelt up to lob a grenade with a strong arm. Vilde loading a shotgun with ammunition, her fingers trembling. Noora gazing at Eva with hopeless, unrequited love as she threw a gun for her to catch. The chilling expression on Eva’s face as she lay, gun propped on her shoulder, finger on the trigger.

_Don’t worry Issy. I won’t let them take us alive._

What were people supposed to do in this situation? Cry, tear their hair, shout at an unfeeling God or the unhearing universe?

“I’d rather be alone, if you don’t mind,” he said unnaturally calmly, as if his voice was no longer his own. It seemed a vain hope – more and more refugees, attracted by the whisper that the Dark Angel was suddenly in their midst – were crowding around him watching. Suddenly he could bear it no longer, and wheeled about, pushing through the curious onlookers, making his way to the medical tent.

_My friends are dead my friends are dead my friends are dead –_

Inside Even lay on a stretcher near the door next to three other wounded cases – he hadn’t even been _looked_ at, thought Isak angrily, hadn’t even been examined in _all this time_ – and Isak sank next to him, covertly reaching for his hand. He was too anxious to even chance a kiss on Even’s pale cheek. His lover’s face was white and unresponsive and Isak couldn’t _bear_ it.

_Don’t leave me too, baby. Please. I couldn’t bear it if –_

“Hey!” Fury suddenly boiled up in him, and he waved angrily to a nurse, her apron stained with blood, rushing to the door with an armful of soiled bandages. “My friend’s in trouble, he needs to be seen now!”

“There’s no doctor available to examine him,” she panted. Her eyes were drooping and exhausted. “There’s at least twenty patients before him.”

“You don’t need to examine him!” Isak roared back furiously. “I can tell you exactly what’s wrong with him! He’s got an excised gangrenous wound on his upper left thigh, and he’s suffering from exposure and shock. You need to clean and sterilise his wound, give him a course of sulphanomides and wrap him up warm.”

“There’s no need to shout!” snapped back the nurse shortly. “We’re doing the best we can, but there’s too many refugees, and just not enough equipment.”

“Then I’ll do it myself!” shouted Isak, but the nurse rolled her eyes and pushed him aside. “I can clean his wound and put on some sulpha powder, but I can’t promise anything more.”

Isak’s anger disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared, leaving a searing sadness in its wake. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, as the nurse clattered a hot copper of water and started to undress Even’s wound to sterilise and bind it. “I’m just a bit upset right now.”

Heedless of what she might think, Isak dropped his forehead on Even’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry baby,” he breathed into Even’s soft hair as darkness overwhelmed him for a time. It all seemed too much, too much to take in at once. His friends – gone, all gone, all swept away in the brutal tide of war that had taken so many millions of lives with it. A whole generation killed, injured or psychologically maimed by brutality. Who apart from him would ever remember them?

“There we go,” said the nurse finally, a gentler tone to her voice. Isak raised his head. The wound was bandaged and dusted with sulpha, and the water in the copper was a bright pink. “Thank you,” he muttered as the nurse swept off.

Below him Even lay unconscious, a faint blue pallor across his face. Isak risked a cautious glance over his shoulder. There was no one around. Quickly Isak lent forward and kissed his pale lips gently.

“Please baby,” he whispered. “I’m here. Come back to me.”

But Even lay motionless and unresponsive. It wasn’t the look of recovery that Isak had hoped to see.

He cast around the tent looking for blankets – there were none spare, but he could see that a few people lying on beds near him would no longer need them – and dragged the blankets off the corpses to make Even a makeshift bed and cover him up warm. When he was done, he sat next to him, his head in his hands.

If Even died too –

He couldn’t bear to think about it.

Reaching into Even’s clothes which lay folded up on the bed from when his wound was cleaned, he withdrew Willhelm’s Luger from the pocket and checked the chamber.

Seven bullets left in case the worst happened.

He only needed one.

 

***

 

The Red Cross tent was a patchy structure adorned with a large red cross, a thin canvas marquee on bendy tent-poles, blown by the wind. Inside a tired-looking Swedish woman sat behind a temporary iron desk. In front of her lay piles of papers, files and photographs, and many people sat or stood around in a long queue in attitudes of varying hopelessness.

Isak waited over two hours until it was his turn. She pushed her glasses up her nose and turned weary eyes on him.

“Name?”

“Isak Valtersen. My friend too – Even – he’s been taken to the infirmary. Even Bech Naesheim.”

The official sighed as she wrote their names down and got Isak to fill out some forms. Some of the questions were absurd – his address, for example, when he’d been living in a bombed-out cellar for two years. He couldn’t resist a chuckle of gallows humour as he read down the list and imagined his possible replies. Qualifications? _Bomb maker and mass-murderer_. Achievements: _Blowing up 11 Nazis during an orgy_. References: _The Wolf of Brandenburg._ Jonas would have found this hilarious, he thought, and pushed down the tearful scream as it started to rise in his throat.

No time to grieve now. Keep going, keep on keeping on. If he fell apart now, he’d never rise again.

For Even he filled in as much as he knew, which was little enough, but he remembered that his lover had told him he’d been with the police force in Tromso, and studied at the University of Oslo before him. Something arty, he thought, and at the thought of Even wondered if he’d ever be able to draw or paint again, whether he’d ever be able to undress him like he had in the farmhouse, be able to take a bath with him, lie in bed with him –

“Is there a public hospital near here?” he asked. “There’s not enough medical care in the camp; there’s corpses lying in the medical tent not even buried.”

The woman looked sympathetic. “There is, but they won’t treat refugees. Some people have been lucky, but they had the money to pay for it. There’s just too many injured people here; we have to bury them once a day.”

“That’s outrageous!” fumed Isak. “People are dying in your country!”

The official heaved a sigh. “It’s politically very difficult. Sweden can’t look like we’re encouraging people to come, you know, otherwise the Nazis will say that we’re collaborating with the Allies and we’re supposed to be neutral. We can’t risk being invaded too. We’re all trying our best, but there’s too many people. Too many tragedies. It’s a mess.”

Isak looked down, suddenly immensely exhausted. “What do I do now?”

The woman passed him a slip of yellow paper. “You’ve been allocated a place in tent R20, but there are no beds and you’ll have to find your own blanket from somewhere."

"I want to stay with my friend in medical," protested Isak, but she shook her head. "Not allowed, I'm afraid. And a meal is served once a day – you’re lucky you arrived in the morning before the queue gets too long.”

 _Is this it?_ wondered Isak. _Is this all I have to look forward to until the war is over? Searching for blankets and standing in queues?_

But he didn’t want to be left alone with his churning thoughts – _my friends are dead; don’t leave me Even_ , so as ever, he unhooked his mind and concentrated on practical things in the way he did when he made bombs or operated. The grief would still be there when he came back to it.

He went for a search, found the tent, and his space to sleep – a wet, sopping piece of groundcloth next to twenty people, and spent an hour searching for a blanket. Despite his exhaustion, he couldn’t sleep. He stood in line with the other refugees as the lunch bell summoned long lines of tired, haggard people to stand for an hour as boiled slop was served in chipped bowls. The toilets were pits dug at the back of the camp and the smell was so foul that it made Isak’s stomach churn. Walking back he passed a young man whose face reminded him of Magnus, and the impulse to run after him and throw his arms around him was ridiculous.

His thoughts plagued him, but he kept them at arm’s length, fearful of what would happen if they overwhelmed him. He missed his friends terribly, and saw them in the faces of all the refugees that passed. How many people like them here had grown up with them, had dreams like theirs, hoped to be married or travel or have a job or children – only to be denied by the Nazi invasion.

If only they had come with him, he cursed himself. Why hadn’t he insisted more, bargained more, demanded that the British give safe passage to his friends as well?

 _This country gave me sanctuary when I lost my own to war_ , said Jonas. _Why wouldn’t I fight for it?_

 _I can’t leave Jonas_ , said Eva. _He never left me._

 _I can’t leave Vilde, and she won’t leave her mum_ , said Magnus.

 _I can’t leave Eva,_ said Noora.

In his heart of hearts he knew they never would have come with him.  

 

***

 

The next couple of days passed slowly. Every day Isak would wake from a chilled sleep on the hard, back-breaking ground, and stand in line with the others for showers, toilets, the daily meal. He visited Even as much as he was allowed , loudly insisting on having his wound cleaned and changed, before they would ask him to leave. Even didn’t wake up; exhausted by the after-effects of gangrene recovery and exposure after their trek through the woods and the lake. 

On the third day, Isak could bear it no more. The money donated by the Army-In-Exile still chinked in his pockets, but there was nothing to buy with it in camp apart from black market cigarettes and whisky, and he knew that way madness lay.

He decided to make his way to Gothenburg, the nearest large city. The camp was an open one, but there were no buses, and it was too far to walk there and back before nightfall. However he had the good fortune to chance upon Captain Eksett, driving into camp with a new truckful of mudstained refugees recently arrived over the border.

“Why do you want to go to Gothenburg?” asked Eksett curiously, but after Isak explained, he nodded deeply, wiped his eyes and immediately offered him a lift.

Isak jumped at the chance.

“Make sure you don’t let anyone hear you speaking Norwegian,” warned Eksett as they drove at breakneck pace through the fields towards Gothenburg. “Best to keep your head down. There’s spies, and foreign agents, not to mention lots of people angry at all the Danes and Finns and Norwegians piling into their country. I say to them, I ask, ‘If it was your country taken over by thugs then what would _you_ do?’ But they don’t understand. Nobody _chooses_ to be a refugee. Until it happens to you, and you have to make that choice to run or stay.”

 _I ran. They stayed,_ Isak thought, and the guilt filled him up like blood.

“Hey.” Eksett slapped his leg comfortingly, seeing from Isak’s face what he was thinking. “You didn’t do anything wrong. They had that choice too, remember? It’s always the survivors who feel guilt, you know.” Isak nodded, taking a deep breath, and Eksett pulled the truck over. “Now, I’m going to drop you here, and wait for you round the back to be discreet. Remember, no speaking Norwegian, okay?”

Isak made his way up the central square and turned left, searching for Gothenburg Synagogue. It didn’t appear to be signed and he soon got lost. His Swedish was pretty bad but soon it was proved that this wouldn’t be the only difficulty.

“Could you tell me the way to the nearest synagogue?” he asked the first passer-by he met in halting Swedish. The man blinked at him in amazement after giving him directions.

“Do you know, I feel sure we’ve met before. Your face looks awfully familiar.”

“I don’t think we have, sorry,” said Isak, moving on as quickly as possible. His notoriety from the newspapers he was beginning to see as a double-edged sword; and no doubt word was beginning to spread from camp that the Dark Angel had arrived in town.

As he made his way towards the synagogue, he became aware that more than a few people watched his progress with interest, and turned to exchange words with each other. Isak pulled up the collar of his jacket and shrank into it as he went underneath the archway and into the central basilica.

Inside the light was dim; the war meant electric or gas lights were generally kept turned off during the day. A thick, perfumed candle burned as a reminder of the _menorah_ of the Temple in Jerusalem that was constantly kept alight. At the back of the synagogue, the Ark of the Torah was encased in sculptured marble, and behind the _bimah_ by the sanctuary, he could see the outline of a man praying.

“Excuse me,” he said breathlessly in his mangled Swedish. He spoke no Yiddish and barely any Swedish, but there was nowhere else to turn. “I’m looking for the rabbi.”

The man raised himself to his feet. “That’s me,” he said in Swedish, but so clearly that Isak could follow it. “How can I help?”

“I have a friend. Had a friend.” Isak corrected himself quickly. “She died. She once asked me to make sure that if she – didn’t make it – someone would say khaddish for her. And – she wanted me to light a candle for her. Yahrtzeit, I think she called it.”

“You are a Gentile?” asked the rabbi gently. He was used to these kind of confidences, Isak could see, his lined face reflecting sympathy but no surprise.

“Yes,” he nodded, and the rabbi took out a small silver pen and pad. “What was her Hebrew name? And the Hebrew name of her father?”

“I – I don’t know,” said Isak doubtfully. “But she wrote this down for me, and asked me to take it to a synagogue if – the worst happened.”

From his pocket he took the small, smudged, folded-up piece of paper written in Hebrew that Eva had pressed on him during the Resistance’s last stand in the dug-out. The rabbi took it and read it, face intent.

“Thank you, she has provided all that I need to say khaddish for her. But she also mentions – khaddish is said usually by the son, but, as her son is yet unborn, she has asked her dearest friend to arrange khaddish to be said for both of them. However, as her son is a pure being and has not committed any sin, he will not be called to judgement, no khaddish will need to be said for him.”

Isak stood as if rooted to the spot.

_Her son as yet unborn._

Jonas and Eva, next to him in the dugout, making love; Eva’s refusal to leave, the determined look on her face as she said goodbye –

“Oh God,” he whispered to himself. “Eva was pregnant.”

 

***

 

Isak sat at the back of the synagogue, listening, head bowed, as the candles burned and the rabbi recited the words of the thousands-year-old prayer for the soul of Eva Mohn. 

_“Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra_

_chirutei, v’yamlich malchutei b’chayeichon_

_uvyomeichon uvchayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba’agala_

_uvizman kariv, v’im’ru: “Amen.”_

The rabbi bowed his head, then began another prayer. Isak had asked if Jonas and his other friends could receive khaddish even though they were not Jewish, and the rabbi had smiled. “Not technically. But there is a prayer, the Aleinu, which we can add as a special prayer for the gentiles we wish to honor.”

The rabbi read out the names of Jonas, Noora, Vilde and Magnus, followed by the words of the Aleinu, which although Isak couldn’t understand them, he felt their meaning well enough.

“Have mercy upon them; pardon all their transgressions ... Make known to them the path of life; shelter their souls in the shadow of Thy wings.”

Isak didn’t believe in God, but he had never felt closer to the eternal in his life.

 

***

 

Emerging from the synagogue, Isak was unprepared for the crowd that had suddenly gathered outside. He assumed that they must have arrived for prayers, although it wasn’t the Sabbath, and ventured cautiously out. Instantly a flashbulb went off in his face, and he was suddenly surrounded by shouting voices.

“It’s him, it’s him!”

“Is it true? Are you really the Dark Angel?”

“Are you here to plan your new bombing campaign?”

“How do you feel about your fallen comrades?”

“Shit! Isak! Quick!” Eksett was suddenly next to him, grabbing his collar and hustling him through the crowd. Hands grabbed at him and faces pushed into his; Eksett used his large frame to barrel a path through the jostling bodies, dragging Isak with him. Around the back of the synagogue the Free Army truck was parked; Eksett must have driven closer to collect him. Isak could see other people moving closer to him: official looking men in suits and dark glasses, heavy-looking men wearing homburgs pulled down over their faces - 

“Get in the truck!” shouted Eksett pushing at him; memories of Magnus shouting the exact same thing made tears prick at Isak’s eyes as he scrambled in and Eksett took off in a racing turn, scattering the crowd and beeping the horn frantically at stragglers.

“Oh my God, what was that?” gasped Isak as their pursuers faded behind them and he sank gratefully back down on his seat.

Eksett grinned. “You’re famous, man! They know you’re in town, my friend. Everyone knows the Dark Angel has come to Sweden!”

Isak groaned, covering his face with his hand. “Damn. And I was trying to be so discreet as well.”

“It’s all right; you’ll be safe enough with us,” said Eksett confidently. “Actually, you should forget about that disgusting refugee camp. We’ll find a nice billet for you somewhere warm and toasty. With a nice warm Swedish girl as well.” He punched Isak’s arm and laughed matily.

Isak forced a smile and shook his head. “I can’t. My friend – he’s still in medical, and I need to be there when he wakes up.”

Eksett nodded sympathetically. “You guys look like you’ve been through a lot together. Good friend, is he?”

Isak sighed. Part of him felt saddened about the future even if Even recovered – to think that he would be always “his friend,” to acquaintances, employers, passers-by, on pain of imprisonment and humiliation.

“Yes,” he managed. “You could say that.”

“Hey!” Eksett slapped his shoulder as they approached the high gates of the refugee camp. “You look like you could do with some cheering up. The guys at the Free Army can’t wait to meet you. You should come down tomorrow. Give us some proper training. We need someone like you who’s seen active service. Tell us how to make a decent bomb so we can stop those bastard German trains from crossing to Norway and Denmark for one thing.”

They’d drawn to a halt, and Isak bit his lip. It was hard to refuse in the face of such evident friendliness. “I can’t, Adrian.” Seeing the confusion in the officer’s eyes, he knew he had to explain. “It’s too much for me. I’ve decided. I don’t want to make bombs any longer. I’ll help in any other way – I’ll sweep roads, I’ll help cook, clean, whatever, but I’m not in the business of killing people anymore.”

“Hang on, what are you saying?” Eksett took his eyes off the road to gawk at Isak, mouth open. “You’re saying that you’re giving up the cause?”

Isak looked down. “I’m – I’m done with fighting, Adrian. I’m sorry.”

“But your friends …!” gasped Eksett. “They died for – their country, they died for _you_! And _this_ is how you choose to honour their memory? By letting the bad guys win?”

There wasn’t anything Isak could say to this. “They knew I wanted to stop,” he said finally. “They took their path and I took mine.”

A long pause, and then “Best go and see how your friend is doing,” and Eksett took off, leaving Isak standing alone in a cloud of smoke.

 

***

 

Inside the medical tent, Isak stopped short in horror.

The bed where Even had lain was empty. The surroundings had been swept clean, his clothes taken. The bloodstained bandages had been thrown away. No trace of his lover remained.

Isak stood, looking at the blank space in growing horror.

_Oh God, Even – no –_

His hand moved unconsciously to his pistol in his pocket. Better to do it now, while the shock still numbed him before the pain set in, better not to feel such an agony for even one second …

There was a cough from behind him, a gentle, but insistent cough.

“Excuse me – Mr. Valtersen?”

Isak stopped and spun around. Behind him a tall man in a dark coat was standing. He didn’t look Swedish, his features and colouring made him out to be somewhere from the Middle East. He was well dressed and reminded Isak of a businessman, or a politician. Noticing Isak’s curious stare, he stepped forward and held out a silver badge saying Consulate.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said courteously.

“Where is he?” blurted out Isak, too afraid for Even to be concerned about yet another person identifying him. “Where’s Even?”

The man smiled. “You need have no fear. He woke up a few hours ago and he’s been asking for you ever since. We’ve managed to get him transferred out of this hell-hole to a private hotel where he can recover in peace, and I’ve come to take you to join him.”

Isak stood, eyes boggling at him. “ _Private hotel_? But – who _are_ you?”

The man held out a hand. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Yousef Acar – one of Even’s oldest schoolfriends, and I’m responsible for getting him into this mess, I’m afraid, so I guess it’s now my job to get him – _and you_ – out of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LISTEN OKAY please don't be too upset about the memorial to Isak's friends ... you know ... I'm sure the Ghost would have had a few tricks up his sleeve ... but you're gonna have to wait awhile to find out ...


	23. The Hotel Gothenburg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even and Isak finally get some time alone in bed together – or DO they? 
> 
> Smut, shocks, slightly awkward virgin sex but they're up for it 
> 
> *and there’s a small interlude from Isak’s POV coz I didn’t want to miss that out, lmaooo
> 
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Homosexuality was legalised in Sweden in 1944, a year after our story takes place. Several countries such as Switzerland and Uruguay had decriminalised homosexuality already - indeed, in some countries, such as Poland, it had never been criminalised. However, in the UK and throughout most European countries, various laws forbidding homosexual acts were in force, and much prejudice was rife in society. 
> 
> In Nazi-occupied countries, such as those which surrounded Sweden on every side, LGBT persons (classed as "asocials" and therefore unable to be absorbed into Reich society, were sent to the concentration camps along with Jews, Slavs, disabled persons and political dissidents.

 

Even woke and found himself lying in bed. For a moment he was bewildered – he’d been sleeping on nothing but hard floors or cold ground for weeks. In the grey half-light, he felt as if he were still on the edge of a bad dream, or as if he wasn’t sure what was real and what was insanity – before he realised he was lying on a real mattress covered by real sheets - and a tangle of yesterday’s events flooded his memory.

Yousef – standing above him in the hospital, eyes wide and concerned as Even shouted: _Isak, where’s Isak –_

 _Your friend has gone away_ , said the nurse hurrying over, and Even had screamed at her; _no, no, he wouldn’t, he would never leave me –_

 _We’re taking you to a hotel,_ said Yousef, and Even had tried to resist, if Isak came back he would never know where he was – but finally he’d allowed himself to be quietened by the promise that Yousef would wait for Isak – and before they’d even gotten to the hotel he’d fallen back into the deep, sick, blackness that swallowed up everything, even dreams.

Now, however, he felt for the first time – if not better, then something definitely approaching it – and thought he might be well enough to sit up.

_Where was Isak –_

He summoned all his strength to drag his aching body upright, but as he did so, the heap of blankets next to him parted and a warm body was suddenly pressed against his.

“Hullo,” murmured Isak dreamily into his neck. “How are you feeling?”

Even was suddenly very wide awake. He was in bed with – _Isak_?

And a _very_ warm, and _very_ naked Isak too, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“Hello,” he breathed back, suddenly overwhelmed and shy at the situation he found himself in. “I – I thought you’d gone.”

Isak raised himself on one elbow and looked at him. His hair was mussed and tangled up, and his green long-lashed eyes were still hazy from sleep, but for Even’s money there was no more beautiful way for a boy to look. His face fell and a look of sadness crossed his face as if recalling a painful memory. “I’m so sorry baby. I had something important to do, but I didn’t want to leave you, I promise.”

“You’re here now,” murmured Even, summoning all his strength to turn on his side and open his arms. Isak slipped into them, easily, naturally, and now with his bare, slender body suddenly pressed against his, Even was very aware of how _close_ they were.

“Do you mind?” whispered Isak in his ear, and the last thing that Even wanted was for Isak to move away, even an inch, even for a second, and he shook his head vigorously. “No. Stay here. Don’t go.” His senses were suddenly filled with Isak, of the softness of his hair and the smell of his skin; now sweet with soap and water, and the tang of dust and Semtex washed away.

“Where did you go?” he whispered, and Isak shook his head vigorously, burrowing into his shoulder. Hot tears leaked against his shoulder, and a muffled “I don’t want to talk about that now,” was the only thing that Even could hear.

“Shhh, okay, baby,” he said soothingly, stroking Isak’s curly head, feeling the smaller boy sigh and nestle against him. “It doesn’t matter.”

Isak’s body curved against him, adjusting to his and letting his warm weight settle against him. Even felt as if he were floating, as if he were still in a dream – but this time a really _good_ one. He ran his fingers through the springy curls, and even that small movement in his weakened state felt like a huge effort. He was _exhausted_.

“Where’s Yousef?” he murmured, looking around. He’d been unconscious when they’d brought him in last night, but now he was in a position to take in his surroundings. The clock on the wall read six thirty, but he wasn’t sure what time it was – it was either grey dawn or grey evening and from the lack of noise outside he was inclined to think it was the former. A smoking paraffin lantern burned on a shelf, illuminating a small hotel room; clean, with a bed, washstand and wardrobe. A table laden with bread, cheese and dried meats stood next to them, with a couple of pitchers of fresh water. His heart suddenly began to race; the door was only _inches_ away, if someone came in and _saw_ them –

“It’s locked,” muttered Isak as if divining his thought. “Yousef said he’d be back tomorrow, but not to open the door to anyone else, and not, under any circumstances, to leave the room.”

Even had _no_ intention of leaving the room.

“Can I – can I have a drink?” he whispered. His throat was dry and slightly burning, but he didn’t feel feverish anymore, and the raging thirst was threatening to consume him.

“Yes of course, baby,” said Isak apologetically, pulling away from him. “Sorry, they gave me food and drink last night but I forgot you hadn’t.”

There was a sudden coldness as his warm body slid away from Even and threw back the covers, and all of a sudden Isak was standing naked in the glow of the paraffin lamp. The light glimmered over his small frame as he attentively poured out a glass of water from the pitcher. For the first time Even could take him in properly, pale golden skin, slender shoulders and a back with a deep groove down the middle, tight stomach with a down of fluff, round thighs and small, pert bottom.

Even gazed at him, struck, drinking in the sight. He’d never seen Isak naked before, and it felt as if all his senses had suddenly ground to an abrupt halt. His lover was skinny – but who wasn’t in wartime – and the delicate grace of his movements made Even feel under an enchantment that he was unwilling to break.

“Do you want it, then?”

Isak was still holding out the water, blushing a little as if he could tell what Even was thinking. Even blinked himself back into the moment and drank thirstily, first one glass and then another as if he would never stop.

“That’s enough,” said Isak firmly, taking the glass off him. “You shouldn’t have too much on an empty stomach.”

“Okay, Doctor,” breathed Even weakly, surrendering the glass and leaning back on his pillows. “I’ll follow your orders from now on.”

“You’d better follow _all_ my orders,” said Isak, smiling as he pulled the blankets back over both of them, leaned forward and kissed him.

 

***

 

Even had never known how many types of kisses there were before; he had kissed plenty of girls before but this was _different_ ; he’d never kissed another boy, much as he’d wanted to, and this wasn’t _any_ boy, it was _Isak_ and the reality overwhelmed his wildest imaginings.

There were short shy kisses, both of them tremulous with want but unsure how to proceed, there were longer, curious, searching kisses as they sought each other out, testing what the other liked, and what they didn’t, and there were achingly long, tender kisses, where it felt as if he was melting into Isak and Isak into him, so that he wasn’t sure where one of them ended and the other one began.

There were kisses that made them collapse in giggles with first-time nerves, kisses that made them both moan, burning for something that they didn’t understand, and kisses that made their skin flush pink and hearts beat faster, hands and lips roaming over each other’s bodies to see, to learn, to know each other. There were gentle kisses, wild kisses, shy kisses, wanton kisses; kisses that made his head whirl and his body start to sing with an emotion he hadn’t known for a long time, kisses that made him feel vulnerable and weak as a child, kisses that made him hard and cruel with lust as Isak’s bare hips started to slide against his with increasing demand. He still felt ill, weak as a newborn, but some of Isak’s health and strength seemed to be flooding into him making him able to touch and kiss him back with mounting desire.

“Can I – can you take these off me?” murmured Even at last, gesturing to the shirt and shorts that he had been given in the hospital. The friction of their bodies had finally made having layers between them unbearable, and he could feel his cock hard and heavy against the other boy’s stomach, aching to be touched by Isak’s fingers, caressed by his lips and tongue, explore his body and all of the secret places that nobody else had known. He added, teasingly, “Want to find out who likes being Romeo and who likes being Juliet?”

Isak turned to him, oddly hesitant.

“What’s the matter?” breathed Even as he saw the younger boy’s face flush.

Isak bit his lip. “I – I’m – I’ve never been in bed with anyone before. I mean, I’ve _been_ in bed with people – _sleeping_ – but I’ve never been with someone who _wanted_ me, if you know what I mean.”

Even did know. “Come here, beautiful,” he whispered as he pulled Isak towards him. “Don’t be scared. We’ll just work it out as we go along.”

 

***

 

Isak had never known what it was like to be in bed with a naked man before, never felt the full length of a hard body stretched out underneath his, never felt the warm friction of skin on skin or to breathe in the hot scent of musky flesh and the dark scent of sweat. For the first time he didn’t have to worry about his body’s reaction, worry about being discovered or rejected when Even’s body was so plainly responding in exactly the same way.  Despite his injury and the fact that Even mostly had to lie on his back, his lover was no longer the tense spy or the wounded victim, smiling into his kisses with a depth of love and enjoyment that Isak had only ever dreamed of; Even felt so close, so present, so in the moment that nothing else existed.

He felt as if everything was unravelling around him; the carefully-constructed veil that he had needed when sharing a bed with Jonas was being shed with every searching kiss and touch until he felt vulnerable, reborn, and absolutely _himself_.

Jonas –

 _This is now_ , Isak told himself firmly, pushing the thought away before it had even begun. _Even is all I have._

And there was so much to experience and to learn; from how to hold another man’s cock in his hand and feel him gasp and thrust for contact, the softness and the hardness and how it tasted in his mouth, how to lick and suck and take it deeper into his throat than he had thought possible, the feeling of Even’s fingers stroking and pulling at his hair and guiding his movements. About how their cocks felt when they rubbed against each other, length by length or tip to tip, about how Even smelled and tasted and what he needed to do to make him do that funny scrunched-up look again. There was so much he knew by instinct alone, and the fantasies and memories that he’d had with Jonas – _stop thinking about Jonas_ – made him eager to learn more.

“Come sit on me,” whispered Even finally, body taut with desire. “I don’t think my leg will stand anything else right now.”

Isak giggled nervously. “Don’t be shy, Juliet,” whispered Even, and Isak blushed but complied. “Is this okay?” he whispered shyly as he slid astride Even, feeling his thighs part around Even’s narrow hips and his heart bump hard in his chest. “Is your leg still hurting?”

“Nothing’s hurting any more, baby.” Even kissed him, and Isak felt his large warm hands glide up the back of his legs and onto his bottom, squeezing and rubbing until Isak’s cock was hard against the smooth expanse of Even’s stomach. He could feel the thick length of Even’s cock rubbing against his buttocks from behind, and he groaned and rocked his hips, chasing the sweet, maddening friction, feeling his thighs start to tremble and his mouth water.

“I don’t – I don’t know what to _do_ ,” he murmured, suddenly overwhelmed, and felt his lover’s soft laugh beneath him. “No rules, beautiful, do whatever feels good.”

What felt good was to lean forward and be kissed by Even and feel the soft rock of his lover’s hips underneath him, his cock pressing deliciously into Even’s stomach with every motion. He let his eyes half close, thighs tightening and untightening, conscious of Even lying below him on the pillows, watching him adoringly and adjusting his body to Isak’s movements. He could feel a soft, repeated slap against his bottom as his lover played with himself, sometimes rubbing his cock against him, at other times flicking it gently between his buttocks, and the feeling made his head swim.

“Not yet,” whispered Even as Isak tried to strain back against him. “I think we need to work up to that,” and Isak giggled back, the thought of everything in store making him nervous and excited.

“Can you come this way?” murmured Even, and Isak didn’t know. _There’s so much I don’t know_ , he thought to himself, _so much I have to learn,_ but Even’s delighted attention made him feel warm and soothed, and he dropped his head onto Even’s shoulder.

“I don’t think – I’m not sure,” he started to stammer, but Even was already pulling him up bodily so that Isak was astride his shoulders, searching up to take him in his mouth. “Let’s try this, baby,” he muttered hoarsely. “Come here.”

Isak groaned as he sank into the softness of Even’s parted lips, feeling his lover’s tongue lick slowly up the underside of his cock, and the sweet, hard feeling as Even tightened his cheeks and began to suck, drawing slow and deep. He dropped helplessly on all fours, his hands above Even on the mattress, his knees either side of his chest, and let the sensation consume him, rocking himself deep into Even’s mouth, feeling his cock sharpen and harden with heightened sensitivity in the warm wetness, until his movements quickened with an uncontrollable urgency, and he stiffened.

“Oh God, Even,” he groaned, and his voice didn’t sound like his, but like another voice entirely, speaking from deep inside him in a way he never had before. As he came he threw his head back and his hips forward, his body shuddering and lighting up like coloured lanterns, feeling Even swallow and swallow again, plump lips searching up and down his tender, sensitive cock to milk out every last drop. When he could bear the intensity no longer he pulled out and threw himself down on the pillows next to Even, his head spinning.

“Did that feel good?”

Even turned his head, eyes alight with excitement and happiness, lips parted in a delighted smile as he took in Isak lying ruined and panting next to him.

“What are you _laughing_ at?” whispered Isak, bewildered, but Even couldn’t _stop_ laughing, and finally Isak started to laugh with him; they laughed and laughed as if the whole world was a joke, and they two were the only ones who understood it.

Finally Isak nestled up next to him, suddenly bashful again.

“What do I taste like?” he whispered shyly.

“Delicious,” Even murmured back, pulling his face closer. “Kiss me and see.”

 

***

 

Even _loved_ it; he loved the soft intake of breath as Isak, his soft gasps and _mmmm_ s and intakes of breath as Even’s hands and lips roamed over his skin, a low commentary of desire that guided Even through the unknown; right now he was flying as blind as Isak was. He’d been with girls before, and parts of this were similar but others different, and he enjoyed working out what Isak liked best and what he didn’t. The constraints of lying on his back made him inventive; he might be injured but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let _that_ hold him back giving Isak what he needed.

Once Isak had recovered from his first time, Even gave it to him again, this time with Isak kneeling over his face in reverse so Even was able to use tongue and fingers to make him cry out and shudder in the way he loved so much. He cupped Isak’s bottom in his hands as his tongue searched deep between his buttocks, licking and thrusting until Isak was a keening mess above him.

“Even, please, _stop_ ; oh Even, _don’t stop_ – ”

“Wet my fingers up, baby,” murmured Even, giving his hand to Isak to suck, and when the boy complied, slid his hand between Isak’s legs. Isak moaned, deep and low, and Even felt an answering ache in his own cock at the sound. “Can you suck me?” he whispered.

Isak leaned over on all fours, nuzzling and tonguing at the tip of Even’s cock as Even enjoyed the plump softness of his ass from behind, experimenting with how deep he could go with his tongue, how tight he was against his fingers. He could feel the younger boy gasp and jump as his finger slid slowly in, and he stroked his flanks soothingly. “It’s me, baby, just me, don’t be scared.”

 _I want to be inside you so badly_ , he thought, dizzily, _oh God,_ _I really, really need to -_

Isak hummed in bliss as Even started to gently move his finger in and out, his warm wet tongue roaming over the head of Even’s cock, making him gasp and shudder and thrust into the boy’s mouth. _Fuck I’m going to come_ , he thought, too late, as he suddenly lost it in hard, thick spurts over Isak’s face, hearing him gasp and splutter at the unexpected sensation.

“Hey! You didn’t have to make me so _dirty_ ,” complained Isak, kneeling up, wiping at his cheek.

“That’s too bad,” whispered Even, pulling him closer, rubbing the rest of his mess deep into the other boy’s face, then pressing his thumbs into Isak’s mouth for him to suck. “You look so damn beautiful when you’re dirty.”

“We need to have a _bath_!” objected Isak, half giggling, half irritated, but Even took his wrist and pulled him firmly back down on top of him.

“Not until you return the favour, if you please, _Doctor_.”

 

***

 

Isak fell asleep soon afterwards pillowed on Even’s chest – despite his protests, _without_ a bath – but Even remained awake, one hand behind his head, the fingers of the other idly playing with Isak’s curls. It was now dark; morning would come soon enough, and Yousef, and then - ?

What was the plan? Where were they to go? London was out of bounds, Sweden a hotbed of spies, and they were surrounded on all sides by Nazi-occupied countries. Isak had talked about family up in the north of Sweden, but Even was pretty sure that they wouldn’t be happy if he turned up bringing a wounded “friend.” Mouths were hard to feed in wartime, and those that couldn’t work had to make shift for themselves.

As for living openly with Isak as a couple - forget it. The only countries he knew where homosexuality was not against the law were Poland (now under Nazi occupation) and neutral Switzerland; a tiny country as full of spies as Sweden, and also surrounded on every side by the Third Reich. 

“Well, you boys certainly made a party of it, didn’t you?”

Even almost leapt out of his skin at Chris’s voice. The Nazi was sitting comfortably on a chair in the shadows, feet up on the dresser.

“Oh don’t stop _there_.” Chris’s voice was seductive, teasing. “I was starting to really enjoy the show.”

Even gazed around the room wildly, his heart pounding. “I’m _dreaming_ ,” he whispered to himself. “I’m _definitely_ dreaming.”

“We’re all dreaming, baby,” yawned Chris, and Even caught a glimpse of his reddened, shattered skull in the moonlight. “So I guess you got to first base with that boy of yours, huh. They’ll be here soon enough in the morning. Only a few more hours to pop his cherry. Tick tock.”

“Shut up,” muttered Even, pummelling at his face with his fist. “Shut up.”

On his chest Isak moved and moaned, a tiny sticky trail of spittle snaking down onto Even’s bare skin as he smacked his lips, snuggled closer and fell deeply asleep again.

Even glared at Chris, putting both arms protectively around Isak. “What are you still _doing_ here?”

“Me?” Chris put up his hands in mock defensiveness. “You brought me here, darling, didn’t you know?” He rose to his feet and moved towards him. “We travel with you, us ghosts,” he whispered. “Wherever you go, whatever you do. You’ll never leave us behind.”

“Go away! Stop!” Even’s body felt paralysed as Chris loomed over them, as if he was being pressed down by a suffocating weight that wasn’t to do with Isak, but as if every limb had suddenly turned into heavy, treacly inertia. “I never brought you anywhere!”

“Good looking boy, isn’t he, Valtersen?” mused Chris, turning his bloodied face to take in Isak’s sleeping form. “You lucked out there. Mind you, I thought I had with Franz. And how long did we last, may I ask?”

“Don’t touch him,” gasped Even. “He didn’t know.”

Chris gazed lasciviously along Isak’s body, still curled naked around Even’s chest and stomach. “Pretty face. Look at those lips. And nice ass. Tight as hell, I’d imagine. I envy you. I can give you some tips, if you’d like.”

“Get off!” With a huge effort, Even managed to pull his hand free and strike out at the Nazi, but his fist met only shadows. “Leave us alone! Get out!”

Instantly Isak shot awake, pulling at his arm. “Even! Even! Wake up!”

Even blinked, swaying, hands to his head. He was sitting up in bed, Isak kneeling anxiously in front of him. The dim paraffin light was smoking now, sending up flickering shadows against the wall where his clothes were hanging from a hook. Chris had vanished, and the room felt airless and close.

“I thought – I thought I saw someone I knew,” muttered Even dizzily. “He was _here_ , in this room.”

“It’s a dream,” soothed Isak, stroking his shoulder. “A nightmare.”

“He said he would always be with me,” sobbed Even weakly, unable to hold anything back. “He said I could never leave him behind.”

“Shhh, shhh,” Isak rocked him until Even calmed down, then crossed the room and threw open in the shutters in the moonlight. A fresh eddy of wind surged into the room and Even shivered in the cold, though at its touch he felt better and less desperate.

Isak came and sat down next to him. “There’s no one here. Who are you talking about?”

“A friend. Well, not really. He helped me escape,” Even rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “But then he shot himself.”

“Well that’s not _your_ fault,” said Isak sharply. “Not like me with –“ and he broke off abruptly, biting his lip.

“What?” whispered Even, aghast at the look on the younger boy’s face. “Isak, _what_!”

“They died because of me,” stuttered Isak. “All of them. Eva, Magnus, Noora, Vilde, and –” but his voice broke on the last name.

“Oh God,” whispered Even, clutching at him. “Isak, I’m so sorry.”

“I see them all the time,” confessed Isak, biting his lip. “In the camp – there were so many people that looked like Magnus. I saw his face a thousand times. I kept running back to check, just hoping, somehow, that they’d escaped.”

“Who – who told you?” asked Even, and Isak sighed.

“They showed me a newspaper, with the pictures of their bodies. They looked like they were sleeping.” He wrapped his arms around his stomach as if to chase away an ache. “I still see them, sometimes, in dreams.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” said Even, stroking at his cheek. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

There was a startled pause. “You _knew_?” Isak whipped round to look at him. “You _knew_ , and you didn’t tell me?!”

“I didn’t – know for sure,” Even admitted heavily. “After I went to get the report -” and he gave Isak a succinct appraisal of the events after he’d left Willhelm’s office. “I knew there had been a shoot-out. But – I didn’t see the bodies. I wasn’t – I wasn’t sure.”

 _Liar,_ he thought to himself. _Of course you were sure._

Isak pushed his hands away and stalked over to the bathroom, slamming the door after him. With a great effort, Even pushed himself upright and limped after him. “Isak,” he muttered, tapping on the door. “Isak.”

“Leave me alone,” came Isak’s voice, muffled through the door, followed by the noise of water running.

Even sighed, resting his forehead against the wooden door jamb. “Don’t shut me out, please baby. We’ve done enough of that before now.”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” snapped Isak, his voice breaking. “Just go away and leave me alone.”

 

***

 

Even was too tired to make his way back to bed, so he half sat, half lay against the door, waiting for the noise of crying from inside to stop, until finally, Isak came out of the bathroom, bathed and wrapped in a towel, but with his eyes reddened from weeping.

“What the hell are you doing?” he mumbled at the sight of Even’s slumped form. “You shouldn’t be walking around with that wound.”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Even tiredly. “There just – there wasn’t a good time to tell you.”

“Get up. Back to bed.” Isak pulled at him, somewhat irritably, until he managed to stagger the few metres and fall down with Even onto the mattress. Although he still wouldn’t talk to Even, he allowed him to hold him in his arms, face pushed into his shoulder, as they lay back on the crumpled sheets.

After a while, Even felt again the slow drip of tears against his neck, the boy’s body shuddering and panting with suppressed sobs, and he soothed him as best he could, though some of his own fell too, at the thought of everything they had lost and left behind.

 _Am I always going to carry these ghosts with me_ , he thought soberly. _Is Isak? Will they be with us for the rest of our lives?_

“I love you,” snuffled Isak finally against his ear, and all Even’s fears seemed to flit away at the words. Suddenly his blood seemed lit up with warmth and happiness again, despite the heaviness of the world, and the fact that even now in relative safety, they teetered on the very brink of the abyss.

“I love you too, baby,” he murmured into Isak’s hair. “I love you so much.”

There was something more intimate about crying together than even sleeping together, thought Even, as he pushed back the other boy’s sodden hair and kissed his forehead.

“It’s okay, baby,” he whispered into Isak’s ear. “You’re not going to lose me too. We’ll get out of this. I promise.”

 

***

 

Somewhere before the dawn, they made each other come again, hard and needy, using mouths and fingers and tongues, whispering each other’s names until they were maddened with desire and fear alike. Afterwards – whether from the after-effects of illness, exhaustion, or sex, they both fell deeply asleep just before sunrise. The hands of the clock crept later and later, but still they slept, dead to the world and all around them.

Finally, through a haze of dreams – Isak running in a bathing suit ahead of him on a beach, laughing and splashing water at him – Even was dimly aware of the click of a key turning, and the door opening.

“Hello?” said a voice. “Anyone awake?”

At that moment – too late, his senses blurred and overridden by sleep, Even saw a dark shadow in the doorway. For a second he thought it was Chris coming back, and his heart hammered beneath his ribs – but then, a long familiar figure started to enter the room. It stopped abruptly at the sight of their bodies pressed against each other’s, naked and legs tangled together, without even a sheet to cover them.

“Oh God!” Even gasped, jumping up so suddenly that Isak slid off his chest with a bump. “Yousef!”

“Even?!”

Yousef stared back, wide-eyed and shocked. Even swallowed nervously. He could see the scene through his friend’s eyes, and in that desperate, heart-stopping second, he knew how it _looked_ – and he knew there was no possible excuse that he could give –

Apart from that he was in love with Isak and Isak was in love with him.

There was a mutter of voices outside in the corridor, breaking the tension of the moment, and Even grabbed at the sheet to cover himself. He could see Isak struggling awake, face white and scared, clutching for his clothes and trying to dress himself with sleep-dazed fingers.

 _This is it_ , thought Even sickly, _it’s all up now, this is how it begins_ – Prison, or hard labour, or worse, the death penalty if Sir Cecil’s threats were correct –

_Have we really fled all that danger and pain from our enemies, only to be punished for love by our friends?_

“Back!” Yousef turned and slammed the door in the approaching men’s faces before they could enter. “Wait outside!”

He turned round and faced them stonily, and Even quailed at the look on his friend’s face, feeling five years of friendship flare up and disappear as if it had never been. Beside him he could feel Isak shaking with fear.

 _We’ve been caught in the act_ , he thought to himself. _We’re criminals. That’s all we’ll ever be to them._

But all the same, the sight of Isak’s frightened face was more than he could bear, and he felt a surge of anger. Why should he and Isak be ashamed? What had they done wrong? He felt for his lover’s small hand and gripped it strongly.

Isak trembled, but didn’t pull away, and Even could feel his pulse racing in his wrist as he squeezed back.

_We’re not criminals. We’re doing nothing wrong. We love each other._

Yousef leaned back on the door, arms folded, expression as thunderous as he’d ever seen it.

“Does somebody want to explain to me _exactly_ what’s going on here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH SHIT WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW!!!
> 
> Will Yousef be shocked or will he come round?!!
> 
> (Will he be into it?!?!?!)
> 
> WHERE CAN THEY GO?!?!?!


	24. Shetland Bus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In case you hadn't remembered, Yousef has just caught Isak and Even in bed together, eeek.)
> 
> I wanted to write some cool badass-action Yousef and stick in a shoot-out and a car chase and stuff so this is a bit more light-hearted than the previous chapters!
> 
> Historical notes at the end of the chapter so as not to spoil the plot!

“What the _fuck_ is this?”

Yousef took one step further into the room and glared at them.

Isak and Even sat rigidly on the bed in front of him, bedsheet pulled over their naked limbs and their hands clasped tightly together. Though terrified at the expression on Yousef’s face, Isak shot a glance at his lover and was dismayed to see him looking sick with worry.

The sight made him furious. Even had always been so _brave_ – so brave through everything he’d gone through – but his reaction to the sight of his best friend discovering them made Isak want to punch _walls_.

“Hey! Don’t talk to us like that!” Isak snapped haughtily at Yousef with a sudden surge of pride. “We love each other, and I don’t _care_ if you don’t like it. I don’t care if _anyone_ likes it, it’s no-one’s business but ours.”

Yousef looked at him strangely.

“And don’t come barging in on people when they’re sleeping! You’re very lucky you didn’t come in – earlier,” Isak finished snippily, feeling Even gulp next to him, half in shock, half in horrified amusement.

The diplomat rolled his eyes. “Yes, alright Isak, whatever. What I want to know is, what the fuck is _this_?”

He tossed a newspaper that he’d been holding onto the counterpane in front of them. Bewildered, Isak glanced down at it.

DARK ANGEL LANDS IN GOTHENBURG!

Underneath the headline was a picture of him emerging from the synagogue, face white and bewildered, and another of him pushing past the crowd of observers and photographers running towards the Free Norwegian Army truck. He caught a glimpse of the text – “…the infamous murderer of the Norwegian Resistance…” and, “…in Gothenburg to recruit Swedes to the anti-Nazi movement -” – before the diplomat swept it away.

Yousef folded his arms angrily. “Not only did you mess up the British sub I sent for you and practically start an international _crisis_ over Sir Cecil, you decide to go running around _in full view of everyone_? In _Sweden_ , the most dangerous neutral country there is? Do you _know_ how many Nazi spies there are walking around looking for you right now? As soon as they find you they’ll spirit you over the border, but this time not to Norway, but to Germany!”

Isak stared at him, uncomprehending. The diplomat strode forward, picked up his clothes and threw them at him. “Get dressed. We need to leave _now_. Sweden’s not safe for you.”

“But where?” whispered Isak. “Where to?”

“We're taking the Shetland Bus,” said Yousef shortly. “I’ll explain as soon as we’re out of here. Get dressed.”

He turned his back and tapped his foot. Isak and Even exchanged bemused glances. “Hurry up,” he added over his shoulder into the silence.

“What’s the Shetland Bus?” whispered Isak, and Even shook his head, uncomprehending. Isak snuggled closer.

“I’m not going anywhere without _you_ ,” he said stubbornly.

Even sat up with difficulty and put an arm around Isak. “Yousef?”

Yousef spun round edgily. “What?”

“I’m – I’m not sure you understand,” said Even, carefully. “We’re – we’re together, Yousef. Properly. We’re a couple. I love Isak, and he loves me.”

“We want to be together,” chipped in Isak firmly. “Wherever you’re taking me – I need Even to go too.”

There was a short, startled pause, before Yousef unexpectedly burst out laughing. He laughed and laughed until the annoyed look had quite left his face and the release of tension in the air was palpable.

“What’s so funny?” asked Even, perplexed, once Yousef had paused for breath.

Yousef shook his head, gasping for air. “You think I don’t _know_ you, Even? You think I don’t know my oldest friend?”

“Know what?” said Even, confused.

“Come on, Even,” said Yousef, looking more like his old self. “Whenever we went up to the lake to watch Mikael’s swim team – you’d spend more time looking at him than you would me or that poor girl you were dating. And you and that Christoffer? You could cut the tension between you guys with a _knife_ – following each other round like puppies and always asking what the other one was doing –”

“Who’s Mikael?” asked Isak sharply.

“Nothing happened,” said Even hastily, and Yousef spread his hands expressively. “Okay. But what I mean is, it wouldn’t matter if it had. You’re my friend, Even. The best friend I’ve ever had. You don’t need to explain yourself.”

“So … you’re not shocked?” said Even quietly.

“Shocked? Not at all. Actually, we had a bet on it. Me and Sana,” he added quickly. “I thought that _you_ would be the first one to make a move, and Sana said no, she reckoned that if Isak could only get over Jonas, then he would definitely – ”

“ _Jonas_?” said Even, looking at Isak.

“What!” said Isak blushing furiously. “It wasn’t _like_ that.”

“Who was it, by the way?” asked Yousef casually. “So I can cash in with my fiancé.”

“Well, Isak asked me to dance,” said Even.

“And Even kissed me,” said Isak.

“No, you kissed me,” corrected Even. “You gave me a bruise the size of a cherry on my neck. You can still see it.”

“You kissed my hair first,” argued Isak. “It felt like you – ”

“Fine, we can thrash out the details later,” said Yousef hurriedly, glancing at his watch. “We’ve got a car waiting downstairs, and we – ”

There was a sudden hiss and the radio in his pocket crackled into life. “Boss – BOSS!” shouted a voice in sudden panic. “They’re here! They’re coming –”

Through the radio came a bang and a garbled scream, and Yousef grabbed at the radio to turn it off. “Shit!” he panted. “They’re on our tail. We need to go!”

Isak grabbed at shirt and trousers while Yousef flung a long black trench coat around Even and stuffed a trilby on his head. Then he flattened himself against the opposite wall, pulled out an automatic pistol with a long silencer screwed onto the barrel, and opened the door a crack.

“Time to check out,” he breathed. “Follow me, and quickly.”

 

***

 

The long carpeted floors of the Gothenburg Hotel stretched in all directions as Isak stole after Yousef, Even at his side with an arm slung over his shoulder, limping with difficulty. Yousef led the way past countless identical hotel doors and round innumerable corners at a crouching run, while the two bodyguards brought up the rear. There was no sound in the largely deserted hotel – most regular Swedes could no longer afford to stay there – and only the clunk and gurgle of pipes accompanied their breathless, stumbling escape.

“OK, we’re not going out the front,” whispered Yousef as they clustered next to a fire door. “There’s two exits, but they’ll likely have them covered. There’s the fire escape, but it’s exposed, and anyone coming round the corner will have us like sitting ducks.”

Isak felt his stomach contract with fear, and Even squeezed his hand nervously. “It’s ok, baby,” he whispered softly in his ear. “We won’t let anybody abduct you. I promise.”

“They don’t know which room you’re in, so they’ll have to check them all,” muttered Yousef. “That’ll buy us some time, if nothing else.”

“Let’s go the fire escape,” offered Isak. “I can’t sit here and wait for them.”

Yousef nodded at one of the bodyguards who eased himself forward and cautiously unhooked the fire door. He scanned the outside of the building until he was satisfied that it was unmarked, and took one step onto the fire escape.

BANG! The thud of the bullet entering his brain reverberated through the corridor, and the next moment the man lay dead at their feet. They leapt back with a cry of fear and alarm and scattered, clustering for cover underneath the window.

“Oh my God,” whispered Isak, gazing down at the body, blood spilling from its head from the bullet wound and snaking down the patterned carpet in a red trail. “They’ve got us surrounded.”

“Shit,” cursed Yousef, crouched in shock. “Allaahum-maghfir lahu warhamhu,” he whispered softly, touching the slain man’s forehead quickly in a swift act of dua. “Wa 'aafihi, wa'fu 'anhu –”

Another bullet followed the first and pinged dangerously close to them. There was no time to grieve or perform any other act of blessing. Yousef straightened up and looked at them tensely. “There’s the roof through the skylight. It’s protected by the gables if we keep behind the chimneys for cover. It’s a long way down, but it’s our only chance.”

Even trembled on his shoulder and Isak angrily spoke up. “Even can’t take the roof. He can barely walk!”

“I’ll try,” whispered Even, gritting his teeth, and Yousef looked at him worriedly. “I can pull you, perhaps, Even, if – ”

He was interrupted by the _snap_ of the door on their other side, and footsteps marching briskly towards them. They swung wildly around and gazed at the door, Yousef and the bodyguard taking aim at the front. There was nowhere to hide, they were trapped in full sight –

Through the doors backed a white-jacketed waiter, pulling a trolley heaped with towels, making for the hotel laundry chute at the end of the corridor. As he turned round to open the chute he took one look at the men training guns on him, gulped and held his hands up in surrender.

“Don’t shoot, I’m just doing the laundry – “ he stammered, the blood draining from his face.

“Get out of here,” snapped Yousef. “You never saw us.”

The waiter nodded, white with terror, backing off, hands held high. As soon as he was out of range he scampered down the corridor, leaving the trolley heaped with towels behind him. It was better not to ask any questions in wartime Sweden when you saw a group of armed men. You never knew who they would be working for.

From downstairs came the distant sound of a door slamming and feet running up the stairs. “They’re going to be here any moment, Boss,” hissed the only remaining bodyguard, crouching behind the abandoned trolley and covering the doors with his gun. “If you go now. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

“Wait!” whispered Isak. “The laundry!”

“What about it?” threw back Yousef, pulling open the skylight to the roof. “Right, here we go. Don’t look down, anyone.”

“The laundry chute,” whispered Isak. “How big is it?”

Yousef stared at him. “You don’t mean –”

Isak shrugged. “It’s better than the roof, isn’t it? It should come out near the kitchens, and maybe – maybe we could smuggle ourselves out?”

The bodyguard risked a look over his shoulder. “It could work. The laundry is round the back, although there’s no open access – and now they're in the stairwells it’s the last place they’d be expecting us to come from.”

“Hell of a drop, though,” worried Yousef. “We’re on the sixth floor. Are you sure you’re up to it, Even?”

Even looked apprehensive. “Well apparently I’ve been thrown through a garbage chute before by Magnus, so I guess I could give this a go.”

“Let me go first,” said Isak decisively. “I’ll take these for my crash-landing,” he grabbed up an armful of towels, “and I can hold them off the other end if need be.” He drew Willhelm’s Luger from his pocket, wrenched open the chute, leaned forward and kissed Even urgently on the mouth.

“Don’t squash me when you come down, baby.”

“Isak! What!” began Even, but Isak was gone.

 

***

 

It was narrow – terribly narrow – and plated with metal that made the walls of the chute slippery like glass. Isak had barely time to slip the lower half of his body through and acclimatise to the darkness before he was plummeting downwards, scrabbling wildly at the sides to try to slow himself down.

“Shiiiiiiiiit!” he screamed as he fell.

It wasn’t a vertical drop – more of a large twisting drainpipe where towels, pillowcases and other washing could be sent down to the laundry room without the bother of being carried downstairs – but the speed of the descent sent him shooting downwards as if on a nightmarish fairground ride, banging from side to side and tearing an involuntary scream from his lungs.

Thrashing, grabbing, kicking out, his knuckles were grazed and bleeding but he had barely time to register the fact that he was _falling_ before the darkness of the chute suddenly exploded into light as he shot out into the laundry room. He hit a large pile of soiled sheets heaped underneath the chute with a muffled grunt.

Around him clouds of steam billowed through the air and the smells of ammonia and lavender filled the room. Winded from his fall, he lay on his back for a moment before a similar clanging from above signalled that Even was on his way down. With a fraction of a second to go, Isak rolled to the side and Even landed close beside him in a tangle of limbs.

“Fuck!” groaned Even. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

“Oh baby, your leg!” Isak pulled at him, but his lover was in so much pain he could barely move. “Come here, baby, is it broken, is it –”

“I don’t think so,” gritted Even, cradling his wounded thigh as Isak supported him. “But it hurts like hell.”

“What – who are you?” came a shocked voice, and they spun around. Two laundry workers were standing looking at them through the clouds of steam, goggle-eyed. “Don’t hurt us, please!”

Isak became aware that he was still holding Willhelm’s revolver in his right hand. Taking a chance, he raised his arm and pointed it at them. “You say nothing, understand?” he hissed out, modelling Yousef’s badass attitude. “Stay quiet and nobody gets hurt!”

“Uhhh … Isak,” whispered Even in his ear. “I don’t think that’s necessary. These guys are just washing dirty sheets.”

“How do we get out?” barked Isak, swinging the gun wildly around, making Even flinch and the workers duck. One of the them cowered, slowly raising his hands above his head.

“The nearest door is by the deliveries, where the van comes in,” he whispered.

“When’s the next delivery?” snapped Isak, his arm wobbling slightly as he indicated to them that they should move.

“Not until tomorrow,” stammered the worker. “The last van just left.”

“Shit,” muttered Isak, his confidence falling. “How are we going to get out?”

“Oh God,” whispered Even, staring above them. “Where’s Yousef? ”

Isak swung round fearfully, but at that moment a distant volley of shots broke out above them, muffled by distance, but accompanied by screams and the sound of feet running. The two laundry workers, taking advantage of their distraction, exchanged terrified glances, dropped their hands and tore off, disappearing behind the clouds of belching steam.

Isak grabbed Even and helped him off the tumbled sheets. “We’re going to have to fight it out, baby,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. It was worth trying.”

“Then give me the gun,” hissed Even, but Isak shook his head stubbornly. “ _No!_ You’re _wounded_ –”

“I’m a better shot than you any day of the week!” retorted Even. “And what did you think you were doing, waving it around at defenceless people like that?”

Isak frowned in irritation. “Don’t _lecture_ me! Anyway, you need all your strength to walk!”

They both jumped as there was a heavy bang and crash and Yousef appeared in the laundry bin that they had just vacated, twisting and turning to land on his hands lithe as a cat. Immediately he rolled off and cocked his gun. “What’s going on? Why are you standing around?!”

“We thought you –” began Even, but Yousef strode past him. “They got up to the top floor, and Adam’s holding them off to stage a diversion. They’ll think we’re all up there, the amount of bullets he’s putting out. Now’s our chance.”

“But isn’t he going to –” began Isak, and Yousef shook his head. “His mission was to protect you at all costs. That’s what he’s sworn to do.”

Isak felt sick with horror – two more men would die today protecting him – but Yousef tugged at his arm insistently, and slowly they melted into the enveloping clouds of steam, holding the limping Even between them.

 

***

 

Hobbling and keeping low to the wall, they were half way along the alley that separated the hotel delivery doors to the street when a staccato hail of bullets rained from the roof above. Their pursuers had discovered their escape, and from the distance Isak could see black figures swarming over the roof and skylight where they had been minutes before.

“Run! Run!” Yousef turned and blazed fire up at their attackers. “I’ll cover you! Run for the street, there’s a car waiting there!”

Half limping, half staggering, Isak and Even forced themselves long as fast as they could. The high alley walls shielded them from the worst of the gunfire, but all around them came the deadly ping and snap of bullets hitting the stones as they ricocheted dangerously close to them. A hole appeared in Even’s trilby and the shoulder of Isak’s coat was plucked and ripped by a rebound bullet. Willhelm’s gun dropped from his nerveless fingers in shock and he had neither strength nor courage to run back for it.

The end of the alleyway hovered like a mirage in front of them, and with the last of his endurance Isak pulled Even around the corner and collapsed together on the pavement.

A car was shooting towards them, long and black bearing diplomatic plates and with a small Turkish flag flying from the bonnet. It screeched to a halt as it saw them, the driver leaning from the window, shouting, “Get in! Get in!”

Isak had only strength enough to pull at Even feebly, before Yousef was beside them, hauling Even’s limp form into the back seat of the car and shoving him forcefully into the footwell.

“Go, go, go!” he shouted and the chauffeur took off before the doors had even closed, the car swinging wildly along the cobbled streets, flinging Isak and Even into a heap, foreheads knocking painfully together. Around them they could hear the noise of people screaming as they scattered, and the approaching chatter of gunfire.

“Is anyone following us?” cried the chauffer, and Yousef peered through the back window, gun cocked. “Not that I can see.”

Behind them an unmarked silver car swung into the street and roared after them, and the windscreen suddenly splintered as two bullets thudded against it, although the specially-made bullet-proof glass held firm. Yousef ducked.

“Ok, scrap that. They’re on our tail.”

“Right, hang on.” The chauffeur wrenched the wheel round in a spin turn and set off through a network of twisting alleys, bumping and swerving over the old cobbles.

The district of Haga is an old one, paved with ancient stone and lined with wooden houses. Market stalls crowded every corner and the diplomatic car wheeled crazily through them, bumping tables and sending showers of apples cascading over the streets. Behind them, the silver car crept closer, swerving neatly to avoid the debris, a steady hail of gunfire coming from a sawn-off machine gun protruding from the passenger window. Shouts and confusion followed them as market-goers leapt for cover, wrenching small children out of the way and running to their houses.

Yousef forced down the window and hung out, firing pot shots at the following car which wheeled crazily to the side as its own windscreen shattered, but doggedly kept up the pursuit. “Keep down!” he cried over his shoulder, a relatively unnecessary order, which they had no trouble in obeying.

Pressed uncomfortably into the car floor and against Even’s shoulder, Isak couldn’t see anything but he could _feel_ plenty – the car juddered over the stones like a pulverising tornado as they tore down the Frigångsgatan alongside the park – a short stretch of clear road where they picked up speed before the silver car slewed into the street behind them and picked up the chase. More gunfire echoed around them, and the chauffeur dodged to spoil their aim.

A farmer’s van suddenly pulled in front of them, blocking their way momentarily, and the chauffeur hauled on the handbrake to send the limo into a sloughing left-hand turn down another street. For a moment, they lost sight of the pursuing car, but it was only a matter of time.

“Let’s make for the main road,” cried the chauffeur. “We need to get out of this now!”

“No wait!” shouted Yousef. “Pull in here!”

“What!” shouted the chauffeur. “That’s suicide!”

“Pull in! That’s an order!” insisted Yousef, and the car screeched into a narrow bay behind a row of dustbins just where Haga district meets the Norra Allégatan as it runs alongside the Göta Canal. Moments later, the silver car passed them, travelling too fast in the narrow street. Yousef leaned out of the window, took careful aim and shot both nearside tyres out with two successive bullets.

There was a scream of brakes and the silver car skidded, wheeled full circle and careered helplessly down the Pustaviksgaten, sparks flying from its bared rims. Crashing through the small wooden fence, it ploughed inelegantly into the blue waters of the canal where it started to sink and bubble, the car horn howling loud in fury before it was swallowed up by the water.

Yousef swung himself back into the backseat, looking rather pleased with himself.

“Now that’s how you do it,” he murmured to himself, looking down at Isak’s green face below him with a smirk. “Next stop, the Shetland Express.”

 

***

 

The diplomatic limousine was riding on its rims by the time the car finally pulled to a stop on a windswept, narrow ledge that overlooked the fjiord. They hadn’t been challenged on the journey – stopping a car bearing diplomatic plates and flags in neutral Sweden was tantamount to starting an international incident – but the atmosphere had still been taut with tension after the shoot-out. Though confident they had left their pursuers behind, Yousef kept a keen eye out, making them lie down in the footwell and covered them with a blanket.

Even fell asleep, wedged uncomfortably on Isak’s shoulder, as the night first crept in and then out around the speeding car, eating up the miles in a seemingly endless journey. When they finally emerged in the last rays of the afternoon the next day, stiff and shaking after a day and a half’s travel cramped in the tiny space, Even caught his breath. The whole back and flank of the car was peppered with bullet holes.

“You’ve got one hell of a driver,” he muttered. “I don’t know how we got out of there alive.”

“Tell him yourself,” said Yousef, as the driver’s door opened and a figure got out. “Well played, Mik.”

Even felt as if he had been punched in the stomach.

“Mikael?” he whispered, looking at the young man in front of him.

Out of all the people that he could have met as Yousef’s chauffer – he’d never expected –

He could feel Isak looking at him sharply, wonderingly, and Yousef hiding a knowing grin.

Mikael was much as he remembered him – small and slender, with large eyes and honey-coloured skin. Even had never known him properly – had only ever met him through Yousef, who had dragged Even to all his sporting events – but he had occupied all Even’s fevered nightly imaginings for months, even years. Yet here he was, pushing his hair out of his eyes, as large as life. He flashed a smile that in years past would have made Even go weak at the knees, and held out his hand.

“Halla again Even! Sorry. We haven’t had time for small talk. We were kind of busy back there, in case you hadn’t realised.”

Even forced a smile. “Any excuse. You never were one for small talk.” Part of him was relieved that they could just fall back into banter, and the other half felt strangely unnerved and unmanned. His hand felt Mikael’s warm fingers momentarily and he swallowed. It was the first time they’d ever properly touched for more than a second. Five years ago this would have sent him into a flat spin, but now so many things had changed for Even in that time. Looking at Mikael, he could feel only fond memories and a sense of things coming full circle.

Isak’s small hand searched jealously into Even’s other hand and he squeezed it quickly. “Uh, Mikael, this is – ”

“I know who Isak is,” said Mikael with a laugh. “Everybody knows who Isak is. He’s all anybody’s talking about these days.”

“Well, he’s also my boyfriend,” said Even with a warm glow of pride, pulling Isak to him. Now that Yousef had received the news so well, he didn’t care to keep on hiding himself. Isak flushed and looked both furious and delighted at the same time, gripping on to Even’s hand and nestling against his side.

Mikael didn’t look surprised, but smiled warmly.

“I’m really pleased for you guys. That’s a pretty amazing story. A wartime romance, huh?”

“It’s _not_ a wartime romance,” snapped Isak, bridling unexpectedly. “It’s for real.”

There was a short, awkward pause, during which Even blushed and Isak stared hard at Mikael, who shrugged and forced a casual air. “Of course. And I’m glad you guys are getting the hell out together. This is no country for either of you to be knocking around in.”

“How _are_ we going to get out?” asked Even quickly, desperate for a change of subject.

“And where are we even _going_?” muttered Isak grumpily.

Yousef looked behind him at the darkening channel of water and whistled softly. After a second, there was a soft _tonk-tonk_ of a single-cylinder diesel engine puttering through the water, and a long Møre fishing cutter swung into sight, its two tall masts outlined against the setting sun.

“A fishing boat?” asked Isak in sudden surprise, staring at it. “But -!”

“The Shetland Bus,” said Yousef grandly. “Your carriage awaits.”

 

***

 

“Shetland?” gasped Isak in surprise, gazing at Yousef. “The Shetland Islands? That’s - England, isn’t it?”

“A group of islands off the coast of Scotland, actually,” said Yousef airily, waving down the cutter which slowed as it slid alongside them in the half-gloom. “And check your language. The Scots won’t thank you for calling them English.”

A couple of fishermen sprang out of the vessel and moored it, and the thick dense smell of cod flooded over them, making them both sick to their stomachs. But up close Isak could see it was no ordinary fishing boat. On the decks of the trawler he could see the glint of sub-machine gun turrets, buried under camouflaging nets, and amid the burly bronzed seamen, he could see a couple of uniforms disguised under thick woollen fisherman’s jumpers.

The cargo that this ship would carry was human.

Even turned to Yousef, suddenly fearful. “But we can’t go to England! I punched Sir Cecil! Then after we ran from the submarine, he said – he said if he ever saw us he’d have us executed for treason! We can’t go back there!”

Isak shook his head at the diplomat. "It's better if we make it to my relatives and see if they can help. I've got distant family living in the North. If you really just want to get us away, let us go there. We'll live quietly. Nobody will ever know."

Yousef sighed. “Okay. So I think I have to make it clear now.” He fixed Isak with a keen stare. “You’ve been lucky, Isak – incredibly lucky – and the lucky card that you hold is that everybody wants you alive.”

“Because I know how to kill millions of people,” said Isak woodenly, folding his arms over his stomach. “That’s really what they want, isn’t it? My knowledge to build the most deadly bomb of all time.”

“Not at all,” said Yousef unexpectedly. “This was what I was going to explain, back at the hotel before everything went to shit." He wrapped his black coat around him and sat down on a mooring post.

"You know that King Haakon is living in England now with the government in exile? In Kensington I think, nice place."

Isak nodded grudgingly.

"Well, after Sir Cecil came back empty-handed from the submarine rescue, screaming and shouting, King Haakon asked why you were unwilling to come, and Sana told him, that you didn’t want to make bombs anymore.”

“That’s right,” said Isak irritably. “And that’s why I’m no good to him. I'm no good to anyone. I'm done with being a pawn in this war, seriously, Yousef. Thanks for saving us and all, but just let me and Even go."

Yousef stared at him, consideringly.

"Do you remember the Mosquito bombing raid on the square in Oslo last week, Isak?”

Isak remembered only too well; his escape from the Nazi rally underneath the relentless bombing of the Mosquitos and the devastation they had caused.

“Well, the King was horrified at the number of civilian casualties. The British were hailing it as a triumph, but the Norwegian government is deeply upset about it, and it’s changed the way they view things with their British allies.” He paused, impressively. “So the King has issued a pardon for you, _both_ of you. He’s petitioned the British Government to give you asylum – under his protection as Norwegian subjects – but on condition that you _don’t_ get involved with the nuclear programme."

Both of them were staring at him. Yousef continued. "Instead, he wants you to use your knowledge to work on something else. Medical, perhaps, or radiographic. There's any amount of jobs like that in Edinburgh, Oxford, Bletchley Park. Something that – will help the war effort – but constructive. Not destructive.”

“I don’t believe him,” said Isak stubbornly, staring at the floor. "It's a trick."

Yousef sighed. “It isn’t a trick. This isn't the British we're talking about. There is no reason the King would go back on his word." His voice softened. "But apart from everything else, Isak, what about Even? He can’t be on the run forever. Look at him.”

Even was leaning unsteadily on the mooring post, staring at the boat in a haze of tiredness, seemingly unaware of anything going on around him.

"This is your last chance," said Yousef urgently. "It’s in nobody’s interest to have you dead, Isak, which is what will happen, sooner or later, if you stay in Sweden. Whatever remote town you bury yourself in, whatever menial job you take or disguise you wear, they'll track you down. They always do."

As Yousef spoke, Even turned his head and saw Isak's eyes watching him anxiously. He gave Isak a big smile of love and hope, but not even that could mask how weak and exhausted he was.

Isak felt a huge rush of emotion in his stomach and his heart turned over.

“Okay,” he said wearily. “Enough running. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

 

***

 

The small fishing boat puttered down the straits towards the open sea. It reeked so much of fish that they’d begged not to be put down in the hold, and reluctantly, the skipper had allowed them to hide themselves in the outdoor fo’c’sle where the spare nets lay bundled. It still stank to high heaven, but as the wind picked up, it was just about bearable. They lay close together, cushioned on the lumpy coils of net and staring up at the large wheel of the sky above them, dark and studded with stars.

“So,” whispered Isak into his ear. “Mikael, huh?”

“Yeah.” Even gazed at the stars for a moment. “The first boy I ever had feelings for. I didn’t know what it was at first, but I used to go watch him at swim matches all the time.” He grinned. “It was probably pretty obvious to everyone that I was crushing on him, now I think of it. He wasn’t interested in me, though, so nothing happened. I don’t think guys are his type. But come to that, I don’t really know if he’s interested much in girls, either.”

Isak wriggled uncomfortably. “I feel awful. I was stupid back there. He’d just saved our lives, and I was rude to him – that’s not good.”

“Mikael will be fine,” said Even, shrugging. “He doesn’t worry about stuff like that. The last time we saw each other I tried to kiss him, and he said no.” He shifted slightly – even now, the memory still made him cringe. “We’d been talking all night, and I thought we were getting close, but – anyway, I was so mortified I took off and got a job in Tromso the next week without even saying goodbye. We haven’t seen each other since, and you saw how cool he was about it.”

There was a silence, broken only by the rhythmic slap of waves against the prow and the ruffling of wind across the sails.

“It’s true,” said Isak at last, voice muffled. “It’s true. What Yousef said about Jonas.”

Even turned to face him, interested. “Yeah?”

“Well, nothing _happened_ ,” said Isak, flushed, “but I guess – he was the first person who made me feel that way too – you know – and when he got together with Eva, I was so jealous.” He sighed. “I was _obsessed_. And now they’re gone – and I feel so _stupid_ – stupid for wasting all that time on hating, when we could just have been having fun, you know?”

Even groaned. “That's the human condition, I guess. We never know how much time we have, and yet we spend so much of it squabbling and fighting, when we could be enjoying life.”

Isak nodded, staring up at the stars as they circled around them in a slow coronet.

“If I’d only known – how soon they would be gone – I wouldn’t ever have spent so much time feeling unhappy.”

Even pulled him close. “I know, baby,” he murmured into Isak’s hair. “It’s okay. We won’t make that mistake again.”

 

***** TO BE CONTINUED *****

**I reckon there's a few more chapters left in this thing so stay tuned!!!**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The “Shetland Bus” was a real-life undercover evacuation operation run by British Intelligence after the blockade of the Skagerrak sea, taking hundreds of refugees over the North Sea to the Shetland Islands. Disguised as fishermen, and with submachine guns mounted in camouflaged fishing barrels, the boats were around 50–70 feet (15–21 m) long, with two masts and equipped with a 30 to 70 hp single-cylinder semi-diesel engine, which made the characteristic "tonk-tonk" sound. The boats were run by intelligence officers and local fishermen, many of whom died on the route from German mines or attacking ships who suspected their true purpose.


	25. Man Overboard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A desperate sea-rescue leads to a desperate make-out and thigh-f***ing session - if only Isak and Even can reach safety ...
> 
> (rhetorical question there lmaoooo) Also enter a surprise character that you may recognise ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for LeLouchVittbri who smashed their phone in excitement last time I posted an update and requested smut by way of compensation. 
> 
> A fo’c’sle (forecastle) is the deck at the front of the ship, sometimes used to store goods or equipment in fishing boats, as in this fic. Starboard is the ship’s right (port is left), a “boom” is the pole along the bottom of the sail, and a ship is usually referred to as “she/ her.”
> 
> I’ve used some British soldier slang in this to make it sound authentic, but tried to avoid anything that’s offensive and xenophobic by today’s standards. A slang dictionary is in the end notes. If anything is sensitive to any readers here, please let me know!

Even had fallen into a deep doze in the fo’c’sle, face resting comfortably on Isak’s shoulder, lulled to sleep by the motion of the waves and the steady up-and-down swing of the boat beneath them. Dark clouds obscured the moon as the small fishing cutter made her steady way through the dark North sea towards where the Shetland islands, the northernmost archipelago of Great Britain, lay slumbering remote and distant on the horizon.

Drifting through his dreams came the sound of voices crying in Norwegian and a shuddering groan as the ship’s boom swung round inches from their heads. Even flinched awake in the confusion to see Isak already up and peering out over the coils of net.

“What is it?” he murmured muzzily, missing the warmth of Isak’s body beside him.

“I don’t know – they’re saying something about U-boats, I think they’re coming – ” threw back Isak fearfully over his shoulder.

Even gritted his teeth and pulled himself up next to Isak, blinking his eyes clear of sleep. Peering across the darkened horizon where sky met sea, he could just make out in the moonlight the sinister black tail of a submarine slicing though the water towards them like a shark. A cold chill settled in his stomach at the sight.

“On your toppers*!” hissed a burly seaman in English, appearing next to them with a coil of rope. “You fellows really are right Charlies*, aren’t you!”

Even frowned in confusion. “Pardon?”

“Jerry’s coming over to have a gander, but for all he knows, we could just be a regular Norgey fishing outfit. But if he sees your ugly mugs, we’re sunk, in more ways than one*.”

Isak looked bewildered at the flood of strange British soldier slang, but Even understood the sailor’s general meaning well enough, that they should keep their heads down and stay out of sight in the hope that the cruising sub would take them as a normal fishing operation. “What if it follows us?” he whispered, casting a nervous glance at the sea.

“There’s a patch of rough weather up north which has driven the herring shoals out, we’ll make towards that rather than directly towards old Blighty*, see if that fools Jerry,” observed the sailor. “You fellows had better get down in your bunks. This could be quite a picnic.”

 “We’ll hide don’t worry,” Even promised the seaman, pulling Isak down next to him and covering them both with the coils of net.

Up on deck, the seaman unconcernedly threw out the nets and whistled a little tune. There was a stealthy click as the machine guns concealed in the barrels and the hold turned to face the approaching sub.

Moments later the wash started to boil around the ship’s bows as the huge bulk of the submarine drew close. There was a creak as a periscope slid up from the hatch and glinted in the moonlight, scanning each inch of the fishing boat for clues as to its purpose.

“Ah that’s it, Jerry,” the sailor muttered to himself, as if he were pacifying a dog. “Having a good snoop around, are you? You run along, there’s a good boy.”

The ship turned away from her route to the islands and swung north instead, making her way towards the fishing shoals that had been swept towards them by the bad weather. The sub followed suit like a nosy Doberman sniffing at her heels. Soon the sea around the cutter started to teem with herring; the fisherman promptly hauled in his nets, and the decks were suddenly alive with leaping silver bodies, some of which flipped themselves into the fo’c’sle to cover Isak and Even in slippery scales.

“Oh God,” hissed Isak into Even’s ear with a stifled giggle bordering on hysteria. “Not again.”

“I’m never eating fish in my life,” promised Even, his hands clapped over his nose. “I don’t think I’ll ever wash the stink of them out of my hair.”

The sub tailed them for a while, until the dark clouds started to lower overhead and the wind picked up, at which point it apparently lost interest, skimming away as silently as it had come.

“We’ve lost him,” sang out the fisherman, throwing some of the smaller fish back into the water. “Jerry doesn’t like storms, gives him a headache. But now we’ve got to get out of this circus ourselves, and pretty fast.”

He wasn’t wrong. A clap of thunder and an almost instantaneous flash of lightening rent the sky as the storm broke above them. The ship shuddered and rolled, throwing them both ignominiously to starboard, then as she tried to steady herself, sharp needles of icy rain started to pour down on her from above.

“To the hatch! All hands below deck!” roared the seaman, but even as they tried to obey the boat plunged downwards into a huge trough between two parted waves, sending them flying back into the fo’c’sle. As the ship rose up again like a bucking horse, her prow broke through the approaching wave and a mountain of salty brine cascaded over her, making her list uncontrollably to port.

The next second Isak was wrenched from Even’s arms and swept out of the fo’c’sle like a leaf spinning in a storm drain. Even grabbed wildly at him but the coils of net had tangled in Isak’s legs and he watched horrified as, like a giant spool of cotton unravelling, the heavy coil of net rolled away over the deck, taking Isak with it as easily as a fly trapped in a spider’s web.

A giant wave crested with foam rose up over them before it crashed down with overwhelming force, and Isak disappeared in an explosion of spray. When the surf broke, pouring over the ship’s gunwales like soapy bathwater, he was no longer on deck.

Even’s heart stood still.

“Isak!” he screamed, fighting his way up desperately along the deck, grabbing uselessly at the slimy, empty water that eddied around him. “Isak!”

Lightning flashed across the sky again, followed by a gut-churning clap of thunder. When his eyes cleared, Even could see nothing – nothing but surging dark waves and the remaining threads of net flapping torn in the storm wind.

“Where are you?” he called uselessly. “Isak!”

“Strewth, mate! You’re going to catch your death out here!” The sailor was staggering towards him, slipping on the deck that still poured with water, beckoning him to follow. Even shook him off, his heart pounding so hard that it felt it would burst out of his body.

“He’s gone – My – my friend!” He pointed wildly to the boiling foam around the bow of the ship where Isak surely must have been swept. “You have to get him back! You have to!”

The seaman turned. “Man overboard!” he roared in a voice that pierced even the storm raging down around them. “Man overboard!”

 

***

 

Isak sank down, down, down, his hair streaming and clothes ballooning around him in the freezing sea.

 _Even!_ The icy shock had driven the cry from his lips, and there was a roaring in his ears from the weight of water that bore down on him. A dull boom of waves sounded above him, and all his world had suddenly changed to hissing, bubbling black.

 _Even!_ he thought, breath escaping from his lungs in a silent cry as he remembered Even’s face as their slippery fingers were wrenched apart. _Even! Help me!_

He kicked at the wickedly dragging coil of net but it clung to his heel like chewing gum, its weight pulling him inexorably downward. It had tightened around his boot, which was in turn tightly laced up around his ankle, the knots slippery and wet.

 _Fuck_ , he thought as his fingers slipped uselessly on the laces. _I’m trapped, I’m trapped._

Shock and horror paralysed him, and the icy sting of water made it difficult to think. He tried to kick his boot off but the harsh leather dug into his ankle, and the fishing net was too tough to rip asunder. He clawed uselessly in a swimming motion, trying to strike upwards, towards where he could see the light of the scudding moon breaking through the surface water. The light where Even was. But still he felt himself being carried further and further down to the depths. He opened his mouth to scream silently but salt water filled his nose and throat.

 _Is this how it ends_? he thought desperately. _Not with a bang, but with a whimper?_

That’s what all the scientists said what the end of the world would be like. Nobody ever saw it coming, not Jonas, not Eva, not any of them. One minute laughing, talking in the sun, making plans for the future, and the next a desperate struggle in a dusty hideout or in the depths of the sea –

 _Why fight it,_ he thought gloomily, in sudden fatalistic resignation. _It all ends the same, one way or the other._

 _Jonas_ , he thought, his mind beginning to cloud over with lack of oxygen. _Am I going to see you again?_

Isak wasn’t religious, and had no real hope of an afterlife, but he was shocked and confused. The wish to go wherever his friends were now was pulling at him strongly, whispering at him to let it go, rest at last from the struggle, sleep forever in the dark depths.

But even as he started to go limp and drift hopelessly in the darkness, the last bubbles of air escaping his lips, Even’s face flashed before him and he heard again Jonas’s voice during their final farewell.

_Find him. Be happy._

_I just want time with you, Isak_ , Even had said, eyes pleading. _Time._

Isak’s head came up and his eyes glinted with new life. _It’s not going to end here_ , he thought rebelliously. _I haven’t come this far to end up in the bellies of herring._

Using his belt buckle, he started to lever the thick leather away from his ankle, seeking to weaken or widen it enough to get it off. The scratch of it stung his flesh and soon blood started to fill the water, but he sawed on, and little by little the boot widened enough so that he could pull it away from his foot. With one last desperate kick, it slipped from his chafed ankle, the salt water stinging him like a thousand biting ants, and the coil of net sank rapidly to the seabed, taking the boot with it.

Doggedly Isak turned his face towards the surface.

Up, up, up – up there was the world, was life, was Even and everything that lay before him. Everything that he wasn’t about to let go.

Up, up, and a searing pressure sang in his ears and bright flashes spun across his eyeballs. Up, up, and his lungs were bursting and his head swimming from “the bends” – the abrupt change in pressure within the human body often seen in divers who have come up to the surface too quickly. Up, and the bright light of the moon hit him like a searchlight as he burst out of the depths and into the living world.

 

***

 

“Turn her around!” yelled the seaman to the midshipman. “Turn her around once more!”

They had sailed over the same spot umpteen times and although the storm was dying down, they could see no trace of a body in the sea. Even dragged himself around the gunwales, tears streaming down his face, shouting desperately in to the unheeding wind, searching desperately for one last sight of Isak –

_Oh God, no, no, no, please no, Isak –_

“Wait!” The midshipman was pulling at the wheel, steering the foundering ship back into the crest of the waves. “What’s that, over there?”

But Even had seen it too – the small black blob on the waves outlined by a streak of moonlight, something that could have been a rock, or a seal, or flotsam bobbing on the waves. And there was something else – the glint of white flesh in the darkness, and a weak hand, upraised, waving.

“There he is!” he shouted, jabbing at the darkness. “There!”

The seaman hurled out a rubber ring and Even saw a small hand reach out and clasp it. Tears burst out of him in sheer relief and he clung to the mast, overcome with fear and relief and joy and fury all at once.

“Get a grip, man!” shouted the midshipman beside him, slapping him furiously on the shoulder. “All hands on deck! Haul away!”

Even shook himself out of his funk and gripped the rope that the seaman held out to him. As the ship bore alongside Isak the rest of the net was hurled out, sweeping him into a harsh embrace of hemp and tarp like so much herring. For a moment Isak lost his grip on the ring and started to sink with a cry.

“Haul away!” came the cry and the sailors pulled on the ropes. “Haul!”

Desperately Even hauled with them, and this time the dripping head of Isak broke surface in the fishing net, pale, half-drowned and covered in scales and seaweed like a mermaid. The net swung above deck, the seamen pulled on the ropes to release the load and Isak’s small form rolled onto the deck in a shower of fish and seaweed like a prize catch, coughing and gasping like a grampus.

Even threw himself at Isak, seized him in his arms and kissed his blue, chilled face as hard as he could, as if he never planned to let him go. At the beginning it felt like he was kissing a marble statue, but after a few moments – _Isak, it’s me, stay with me, kiss me_ – he felt Isak’s heartrate steadying, breath warm on his face and his mouth start to move against him.

“Here! I say, the fellow’s alive,” urged a voice in his ear after some time. “You don’t need to keep giving him the kiss of life.”

Even pulled back with reluctance. Isak’s face was still pale, but gently flushed with pink, his lips were now a healthy red and his chest was moving up and down. He couldn’t speak, but he gazed up at Even with adoration, and to Even he looked like a pearl cast up from the depths, his Venus born again from the storm-wracked sea.

 _He’s alive,_ he thought, his chest swelling with relief. _He’s alive._

_I’m never going to lose you again._

 

***

 

Four hours later, dawn broke. With a sleeping Isak wrapped in blankets next to him, Even opened his weary eyes to see the khaki green-and-grey of the Shetland Islands emerging out of the mist.

“Wake up, baby,” whispered Even in Isak’s ear, shaking him gently awake. “We’re here.”

Isak stirred, yawned, and despite his early-morning crankiness smiled up at his lover, an expression of pure relief and joy. “Really?” he muttered through a cracked voice. “Did we make it?”

“Yes, baby,” Even whispered, hardly believing it. “We’re here.”

The islands seemed softer and rounder than their jagged cousins in Norway two hundred miles to the east, but the chill winds of the North Sea were the same, screaming around their ears in the early morning. As they entered the shipping channel called the Sound they saw a few small craft speeding past, laden with food, arms and saboteurs en route to Bergen, Narvik and the Resistance. The Shetland-Norway “bus route” was open for the day.

“Here we are boys,” announced the seaman, as the largest of the islands slid past. “Welcome to Prince Olav’s Slipway, opened by the Prince of Norway himself last year.”

Before them opened the wide arms of Scalloway harbour, a castle looming on the hill above the port, and underneath it a large greystone slipway, stretching down into the green water of the Sound. A huge iron wheel began to turn with a grating sound, and the seaman threw the mooring rope to a crewman on the quay, who wrapped it around the wheel, and slowly, the entire ship began to be pulled up the huge concourse and onto dry land.

“So these are the Shetlands,” yawned Isak, sitting up grumpily and taking in their surroundings with displeasure. “I thought it would be like a pretty little holiday island or something, but the whole place looks like a barracks.”

Even grinned, because Isak wasn’t wrong. The ancient port had indeed been transformed into a huge barracks – tin shacks for officer’s use lined the cobbled quay, and on the low-rising hills rows of pitched grey tents flapped in the wind. Trucks hummed along the winding stone roads and groups of soldiers dressed in the dark blue of the British Navy or the grey of the Norwegian army either marched in formation, stacked supplies onto boats or lounged on the cobbles smoking cigarettes and chatting. Above Prince Olav’s Slipway rose two flagpoles, one bearing the flapping Union Jack of Great Britain while the other bore the red flag and the indigo blue hoist of the Norwegian Cross.

Unthinkingly, Even’s fingers brushed Isak’s in an attempt to hold his hand, but Isak flinched away. The next moment a shout from the seamen indicated that they should disembark onto the narrow jetty that ran alongside the slipway.

“You don’t have to worry,” Even whispered to him as they made their way towards the greystone quay. “We’re safe here.”

Isak sighed. “Safe, yes, but not so safe. Holding hands is still outlawed. Nowhere is really safe for us.”

Even took his hand away and looked down, his bubble of joy at reaching dry land pricked by Isak’s fears.

 _Will anywhere be safe for us_? he wondered to himself as they limped tiredly onto the quay. _Will we ever be accepted?_

For the first time he wondered whether he and Isak would even be allowed to _stay_ together. The King had plans in the world of science for Isak, that was certain, but what of Even himself? What part of the war effort would he be drafted into? Maybe they wouldn’t even be in the same city, or the same part of the country –

“Hang on,” Isak interrupted his sober brooding. He was pointing curiously, his attention suddenly distracted. “What’s that?”

Down the greystone causeway towards them marched a small squad of soldiers dressed in the livery of the exiled Norwegian King’s Guard. When they came within ten feet of Even and Isak they stopped in formation, raised their rifles, fired a brief burst into the air, and then saluted.

From the scattered Norwegian seamen and British soldiers lounging around the quay came a scatter of whooping and clapping. Every man was on his feet applauding their arrival, and ribald shouts of welcome and encouragement in Norwegian and not-so-polite British “Tommy” slang filled their ears.

Even stared at them, and despite everything, he felt a slow grin breaking out on his face. He could see that Isak’s expression was the same. It felt strange to be on solid ground again, and even stranger to be received with such ceremony as a four-gun salute and a standing ovation from a crowd of strangers.

Despite all the odds, and everything they still had to overcome, they had made it – he and Isak had _made_ it. His heart swelled with love and pride, and right now he could have taken on everyone in the entire world if he could only keep Isak by his side.

“You have no idea, Juliet,” he whispered in Isak’s ear, “what I’m going to do to you once we’re alone.”

Isak shivered at his words, and gasped slightly. “You’re _impossible_ ,” he breathed back with just the ghost of a smile.

Even swayed then, overcome with tiredness, and Isak slipped an arm protectively around his waist. As Even leaned heavily against him, letting his arm rest on Isak’s shoulders, with a surge of rebellious confidence discreetly brushed his fingers down the nape of his neck as he did so. Whatever hardships still lay ahead, they would face them together.

The Captain of the King’s Guard stepped forward. He made an arresting figure, with his long greatcoat flapping in the breeze, topped off with a loud pink woollen scarf against the raw Shetland weather.

“Well _hello_ boys!” he said with a charming but slightly arch smile. “On behalf of the King-In-Exile and the Norwegian Government, may I formally bid you welcome to ‘Old Blighty’!”

Despite his fatigue, Even took in the Norwegian with interest, a tall, strawberry-blond man, with blue eyes and pale eyelashes, bearing the royal diplomatic ensign on his epaulettes. Next to him Isak pressed into his side, eyeing the officer with barely-concealed incredulity and not a little apprehension.

“Let me introduce myself,” said the officer, stepping forward and offering them both his hand with a theatrical flourish. “I am Lieutenant Tryggvason, liaison officer between King Haakon and the British Government, _but_ ,” he twinkled at them roguishly, “ _you_ can call me Eskild.”

 

***

 

Eskild escorted them (minus, thankfully, the armoured escort) to spend a few hours in the medical tent being treated for dehydration and shock. Here they washed and were given fresh “demob” clothes, Even’s thigh was finally cleaned and more sulfa applied. The examining surgeon gave him a powerful shot of painkiller and declared that the antibiotics Even had taken had most certainly saved his life, as he had never seen a man survive such a badly gangrenous wound for that long.

“You’ll probably have a scar there for the rest of your life,” he warned, as he bandaged up the wound. “And I can’t guarantee you’ll get the full use of your muscles back. You may have to walk with a stick for a while – perhaps forever.”

“At least I’ll be walking,” quipped Even, and behind the doctor’s back, Isak beamed and made a thumbs-up sign.

After treatment, they ate in the Navy mess tent with the soldiers and another large cheer went up as they entered as was tradition to greet newly arrived refugees; they were roughly hugged and back-slapped by a boisterous contingent of the King’s Guard who were just on their way out for a supply run. Rather overwhelmed at the heartiness of their welcome they sat and ate large bowls of greyish chicken soup, boiled eggs and hunks of brown bread and margarine in relative silence.

It was cheerless enough fare, for wartime rationing had devastated the island, but the armed forces ate better victuals than anyone, and for Even and Isak it was a meal fit for a king. They ate and ate while a squad of British “Tommies” watched them, grinning, as they chewed ravenously.

“Where’d you come from, boys?” cried a cheerful Tommy, clapping them on the back.

“Oslo,” spluttered Even, trying not to cough out his mouthful of soup, and the soldiers groaned in commiseration, looking at each other. “Bad show, Oslo,” said one of them sympathetically, and the others nodded.

“Fancy a fag?” asked another, and Isak’s eyes widened in confusion and slight panic at the word, before the Tommy held out a packet of Dunhill cigarettes by way of explanation. Even pocketed the smokes gratefully, and Isak rolled his eyes at him.

“Smoking is so bad for you,” he said in Norwegian, pursing his lips in the way Even loved so well.

“Better give me something else to suck on then, Romeo,” winked Even, and Isak’s pale face dissolved into scarlet embarrassment.

“Shush!” he muttered in confusion, though most of the mess tent was now empty of Norwegians. “I can’t believe you _said_ that!”

“All done? Then let’s go and find your digs,” said Lieutenant Tryggvason, from where he had been loitering unobserved during the entire conversation with a smirk on his face.

 

***

Even was fully expecting that he and Isak would be given bunks in one of the barrack rooms or tents with a platoon of Tommies or Guards – not that he’d care right now as the only thing he wanted was to lie down and sleep – before being despatched to whatever part of the war machine had been decided for them. But the lieutenant – or _Eskild_ , as he insisted on being called, flagged down a car and drove them a few miles out of town. They passed through purple moorland and heather until the sky cleared and became a wintry blue, and soon the noise and bustle of the barracks was lost in the lonely rustle of the highlands.

“Looks like a holiday spot after all,” murmured Isak. It _was_ peaceful, the only sound the wind whistling across the heights, and the only sight the glittering sea that surrounded the small rocky island like a pebble in a pool of sunny water.

Eskild drew to a halt at last. They were outside a small grey stone farmhouse, gazing down over green fields at the sparkling line of the Sound far below.

“My orders were for you to be given a separate billet,” he said with a knowing grin as he passed Even a large, iron key. “Somewhere _private_. Somewhere you boys can … _catch up_ on sleep.”

Isak seemed lost for words so Even thanked him, and Eskild showed him how to work the gas cylinder in the kitchen, the pump in the garden for water, and the location of the underground pantry for supplies. During a quick tour of the small farmhouse, they were dumbfounded to find that it contained just one, rather lumpy, double-bed.

Even suddenly found that sleep was the _last_ thing on his mind, and from Isak’s stifled reaction he was pretty sure that his feelings were reciprocated.

“I _do_ hope you’ll be comfortable,” fluted Eskild with a suggestive wink. “It can get so cold at night here. I’ve left you some extra blankets, but if the worst comes to the worst, you _might_ need to keep each other warm.”

Even grinned as Isak blushed deeply. He was beginning to rather like Eskild, his blend of arch theatricality coupled with a maiden-aunt’s fuss and whimsy, but Isak stared at the King’s officer helplessly with an expression almost approaching fear.

“Whenever it gets dark, you need to black your windows out,” said Eskild sternly, showing them the shutters and blinds for nightly use. “The bombers don’t generally come this far north, but it’ll be just our luck if they do. Not a chink of light from any window, understand? Make sure nobody can see anything – happening – _inside_ ,” he said with a meaningful pout, and Isak blushed deeply again.

Finally when all was explained, Eskild saluted and stepped back. “Tomorrow I’ll come to check on you and see if you’re fit to meet the King,” he trilled charmingly.

Isak’s face was a picture. “The King? Wants to meet me? Us?”

Eskild threw up his hands in mock surprise. “But of course! You’re his wards here, of course he wants to meet his brave Resistance hero. Once, of course, you’ve had time to _recover_.”

However, the small smile playing around the lieutenant’s lips made Even think that the man knew a lot more than he let on.

“Do you – do you think he _knows_?” whispered Isak in some dismay as the officer’s car vanished around the corner.

Even laughed out loud in pure joy, grabbing Isak’s hand.

“Who cares? Remember the promise I made to you while crossing the border?” he breathed. “I told you, when we got to safety, _nobody_ was going to interrupt us again. And I think that time is now, Juliet.”

 

***

 

Isak’s cheek hit the lumpy mattress of the double-bed at the same moment that Even slammed the bedroom door behind them with a force that made even the thick-set walls of the farmhouse shake.

“Take these off me,” Isak muttered, wrestling ineffectually with his shirt buttons. “Take everything off.”

Even flung his coat onto the floor and clambered onto the bed without ceremony, ignoring the brief twinge in his wounded thigh; the doctor’s shot and their sudden luck of privacy had numbed his pain into a fuzzy devil-may-care euphoria. “Come here,” he growled hoarsely, flipping Isak round and pulling open his shirt with a rough tug that exposed the smooth chest beneath.

Isak gasped but Even quietened him by mouthing hungrily over his collar-bones, kissing up his neck with such force that they rolled back together on the bed, more fighting than embracing; clutching at each other in desperation like two drowning swimmers clinging together. Lips met lips, teeth clashed and hair was pulled, their hips found each other and aligned, their thighs wound together in a surging rhythm that sent them rolling from one side of the bed to another. Tongues licked deep and savagely into each other’s mouths, necks and ears until they were moaning from an excess of sensation, muscles were flexed and felt, strength was tested and countered. Somewhere in the middle of it, a play-fight started in the manner of cubs releasing stress, half-giggling, half deadly serious, both of them trying the power of the other.

Finally after a brief tussle Even had Isak pinned underneath him by his wrists, shirt open and dewy with sweat, and their wrestle was abruptly over as they stared at each other for a moment, breathing heavily.

“Go on then, Romeo,” whispered Isak with the faintest hint of a smile. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Even surged down, licking at Isak’s nipples, teasing them with his plump lips until they were hard and erect in his mouth. For a blissful few minutes he sucked on them firmly, deeply, running his tongue wetly around the pink aureoles, biting gently when his mouth grew full, alternating his attention from one to the other, until he could feel Isak groaning and rocking beneath him, his wrists juddering under Even’s hands and his hips starting to rise and fall helplessly.

“Oh God, Even, what the – what are you doing –” he gasped incredulously.

Even grinned to himself; he loved finding sensitive spots that he hadn’t known his lover had, and it didn’t seem like Isak had known it either. Reluctantly leaving his nipples although they looked temptingly wet and sore, he released Isak’s wrists and laid a trail of hard sucking kisses down his stomach and fumbled at his belt. The buckle gave him a momentary annoyance before he burst the pin, drew the belt out in one smooth motion and threw it into a corner. Two swift tugs on trousers and underwear and Isak was naked beneath him, his cock swinging up to hit his stomach with a small thwack.

“Oh my God! Slow down!” protested Isak weakly, but Even giggled. “Don’t worry, beautiful, I’m going to take my time with you.”

Privately he was too occupied in licking and biting playfully into the hollows of Isak’s hips to rush this part, dragging his tongue in a wet line to circle his belly button, licking deep into his stomach with hot, wet lunges. Isak’s fingers tightened in his hair and he could hear him moaning and thrashing above him, all protests seemingly forgotten, in a delicious music of _oh Even oh God yes fuck yes Even more –_  

Presently he felt Isak tugging at his sweater. “Off,” hissed Isak. “This thing is way too hot.” Obediently Even released him, the jumper catching on his ears as he was clumsily helped off with it. Isak sat up, pulling demandingly at his trouser buttons so that Even could shake himself free of his pants at last. The shock of the cold air on his bare skin made his skin prickle.

“Come here, I’ll keep you warm,” muttered Isak, pulling him down on top of him, and at those words, the memory of Isak’s cold face as he came out of the sea made Even suddenly well up with hot tears.

“Baby – what – what’s the matter?” gasped Isak at length, as Even sucked a harsh bruise into his throat to cover his confusion. “You’re crying – Even, don’t cry, please –”

“I thought I’d lost you,” whispered Even, pulling his face against his own and covering his mouth with kisses. “I thought – I’d wasted so much time, baby, and I thought I’d never have the chance again.”

“Well here you have it! Don’t cry, I’m not going anywhere!” Isak tapped Even’s noise sternly with the tip of his forefinger and Even melted instantly. “We have all night without any disturbances, and I’m still waiting to find out what you mean by your promise.”

Even nodded, smiled, kissed him and scrubbed away the tears. _Life is now_ , he thought to himself, and with that thought he knelt up and pulled Isak’s thighs up around his waist with a devilish grin.

“First of all, I want to hear you scream.”

He dipped his head and took Isak’s lolling cock in his mouth in one easy motion, making Isak squeak in sudden shock and pleasure. Even grinned to himself; he was going to make his boy do better than that, and with no one for miles around, he was going to enjoy their isolation to the utmost.

With Isak whimpering beneath him, Even let his tongue circle around the head and teased the sensitive bundle of nerves on the underside with the slightest of licks, alternating with long deep sucks up and down the whole shaft that made Isak throw back his head and let out a sound that was half-whine and half-yelp. Even glowed with pride and arousal, but kept his eyes shut to concentrate on the sensation to its utmost. He was growing to find the shape and taste of Isak familiar but still strange enough to drive him wild with excitement, his own cock hardening untouched as his hips rolled needily against the lumpy mattress.

Isak’s hands scrabbled around the back of his neck to brace himself, and Even let him thrust hard into his mouth a few times, tightening his lips around him and letting him graze the back of his throat until Isak groaned with need, crying out louder and louder as the motion of his hips accelerated. When he felt the sharp, alkaline foretaste of Isak start to prickle along his tongue, Even pulled off with a sucking pop and grasped him firmly to hold him back, grinning at Isak’s furious, indignant thrashes.

“Why did you stop?” moaned Isak. “Keep going, I was so close.”

“I thought you said slow down?” teased Even, licking gently underneath Isak’s balls and feeling them shift and roll under his tongue.

“Oh God, you’re such a tease,” groaned Isak irritably as Even slid a hand underneath his bottom, tilting him up so he could tongue him deep between his buttocks. At the first wet, hot contact Isak threw back his head and screamed finally.

“Aah, oh faen, Even!” as he sent the pillows flying in all directions, grabbing wildly at the bedhead above for something to ground him as his legs wound round Even’s shoulders. “Fuck, don’t stop, oh my God, fuck –”

Even groaned at the sound, fisting himself firmly between his legs as he breached Isak gently with his tongue, circling the rim and flicking his tongue firmly in and out, alternating between licking and sucking his ass for a few heady, intense minutes. He felt Isak’s body shake and start to come apart underneath his mouth, and he pulled away with an effort; he wanted to make this _last_.

He knelt up, spat into his hand and moistened the head of his cock in his palm, gazing at the boy spread underneath him with hot eyes.  

Isak flushed. “Do you want to –“

He broke off, looking overwhelmed and slightly fearful, and Even understood. He had been inside Isak a few times at the hotel, but with fingers and tongue only, and Isak still seemed too small and tight for what he wanted to do.

“Don’t be scared, Juliet,” he whispered. “We’ll work up to that. In the meantime, I’ve got another idea, and I want you to enjoy every second, okay?”

Isak nodded, wide-eyed, and Even bent over him, supporting himself with one hand, holding his dick firmly with the other as he traced it between his lover’s wet, spread legs. Isak keened in anticipation as Even let the stiff head of his cock skim over the moistened flesh and around all the grooves and crevices between his legs, teasing gently for access.

“Is that good?” he moaned as it caught slightly against Isak’s rim before moving on, up and down his taint, around his balls and rubbing firmly against his stiff dick where it lay untouched and weeping against his stomach.

“It’s fucking amazing,” groaned Isak feebly, “whatever you do, don’t fucking stop this time.”

Even had no intention of stopping, but he was going to savour every moment. He kissed up his thighs teasingly, letting his mouth graze his boy’s flesh over and over, feeling the tiny blond hairs tickle his nose and enjoying the stuttering of his breathing. He used his tongue to lick up and down the small channel between Isak’s balls and ass, spitting on it a few times to make it as wet as he could. When he was about as hard as he could bear, he reared up on all fours and started to rock his cock gently into the groove between Isak’s thighs.

“Keep your legs together, baby,” he muttered quietly. “I’m going to make you feel so good.”

As his cock nosed its way between Isak’s legs, gliding flush under the other boy’s balls and along the warm wetness of his taint, Even felt himself sinking into a deep well of heat and friction and softness there, as well as exactly the right amount of tautness and tightness to encircle him fully. He pressed himself against Isak, moulding himself to his lover’s shape, feeling his cock sharpen with interest from the heat between Isak’s thighs.

“Fuck,” sighed Isak, his throat open and exposed under Even’s lips, vibrating all over from the sensation of having Even sliding hard and wet against his fulcrum. “This is – incredib –”

“I’m gonna fuck your thighs a bit, Juliet,” promised Even in his ear, gently starting to tilt his hips. “Keep your legs nice and tight together for me, baby.”

He began to move gently, building the delicious friction between them as slowly as he could bear, enjoying the sound of his boy humming and moaning beneath him. It wasn’t _entirely_ new for Even – for boys to avoid getting girls pregnant it was a pretty popular position of the time – but doing it with a _boy_ , and for that boy to be Isak, it reached a whole new level of physical and mental pleasure. Even could feel Isak’s own cock pressed up between their stomachs, massaged into his belly with every thrust, and the soft roll of his balls against Even’s pelvic bone as he rocked down again. It was as close to full sex as they had gotten before, and his cock slid gratefully through the warm wetness for a while, thrusting helplessly against his lover again and again, surrounded by him, full of the scent of his hair and the heat of his skin, heedless of the torrent of curses and lovewords that spilled from both of their lips.

A few times he had to draw back and spit again to wet them both up, but the heat of their bodies soon created a slick little passageway of sweat between Isak’s legs that made Even’s movements quicken, pumping himself faster and faster, feeling his own forehead start to drip with the effort. He could hear Isak’s moans getting louder and louder, his back arching as Even rubbed along his perineum, felt his nails scratching the skin of his back. Even angled himself as well he could to accelerate his thrusts, short shallow panting lunges that had Isak bouncing beneath him on the lumpy mattress and the wooden headboard thumping against the wall in a harsh rhythm.

The roaring in his ears was such that Even felt rather than heard Isak’s stifled scream as the friction reached a point of maddening sweetness, and then their stomachs were suddenly wet and gluey as they rubbed together, Isak’s bursting cock pulsing load after load across Even’s chest and belly.

Every muscle in Even’s body seemed to contract and sing out, his balls tightened uncontrollably and with a few more thrusts he was spilling between Isak’s thighs in sharp, sweet pulses, working himself in and out of the creamy slick with a last few desperate messy thrusts before he collapsed exhausted on top of him.

“I love you,” he panted blurrily into Isak’s ear, and received an exhausted groan and a “you too,” in response.

Slowly as their thundering hearts started to quieten down, Isak tapped at Even with his balled fists signalling that he should move off him, and reluctantly he rolled to the side. Both of them were breathing hard as if they had run a race, and the steam from their heated bodies rose in wisps into the chill Scottish night.

“I’m so dirty,” groaned Isak, running his hand down his belly and between his legs where their mingled come lay tacky and drying on his skin. “I’m wet and dirty and it’s all your fault.”

“I love you being dirty, Juliet,” grinned Even, and Isak aimed a playful punch at him. “Well it’s freezing here, and Eskild said there was no hot water. Are you going to get up and boil some for me?”

“Later, baby,” sighed Even, pulling a couple of the blankets up around them. “Let’s just enjoy being safe first.”

He let Isak curl into the space between his neck and chest, complaining softly about the lack of warm water and decent food. Finally he went quiet, staring into space in the dark of the night, and Even could practically hear his brain working.

“What is it, baby?” he asked curiously. “What’s the matter?”

“What do you think the King wants with us?” whispered Isak worriedly. “Are we going to stay here? Work in a barracks? Go to another city?”

“I don’t know where he’s going to send us now,” murmured back Even. “I don’t know what he’s got planned for either of us. But I know one thing. I’m never going to leave your side again.”

 

_**TO BE CONTINUED ...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real-life “Prince Olav’s Slipway” still exists in the Shetlands where hundreds of refugees arrived from Norway in tiny fishing boats and from where supply missions were launched. A plaque commemorates the bravery of the fishermen and officers who undertook the perilous rescue mission, some of whom died in the attempt. Journeys were so frequent that they were timetabled and called the “Shetland Bus route.”
> 
> * British slang of WW2:
> 
> On your toppers = get your heads down  
> a right Charlie! = an idiot  
> Jerry = a German/ the Germans/ German army  
> Tommy = a British soldier/ the British/ British army  
> Have a gander = take a look at something  
> A show/ a picnic/ a circus = a fight, situation, or problem  
> Old Blighty = Great Britain

**Author's Note:**

> Don't be too scared about Even being a Nazi ... all will be revealed in its true colours in good time I promise!
> 
> You KNOW I'd never do anything too bad to Even ... right?!?!!
> 
> And ... Willhelm shippers ... don't shoot me!
> 
> I hope nothing is too triggering in this fic, such as for readers with Jewish backgrounds or those who had grandparents living in Nazi Germany - I promise that nothing in this fic is intended to validate or excuse any Nazi attitudes, or blame those who had to stay alive under Nazi rule - I've tried to keep things as realistic as possible without being too traumatic, my apologies if you find it too much. 
> 
> This period of Norway's history is an interesting one and it's amazing how many of my favourite SKAM characters have really slotted into place!
> 
> Do feel free to let me know your comments - I'm really happy to know if I've gotten anything wrong - hopefully nothing too much! Also kudos would be great ... if you have any to spare!
> 
> Come chat to me at @everyoung2017 on Twitter if you've got a moment!


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